


The Voltron Trials

by satincolt



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Equestrian, Gen, Gen but you can find all the ships here if you wear your shipping goggles, Horses, Illustrated, Texan Keith (Voltron), Trans Keith (Voltron), Trans Male Character, Voltron Lions as Horses, Worldbuilding, cowboy keith, endurance racing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-24 06:40:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 31,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14949545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satincolt/pseuds/satincolt
Summary: With the export of horses to the rest of the Universe, the Voltron Endurance Trials became the new Olympics of the horse world, functioning not only as a test of survival and riding prowess, but also as one of the most important diplomatic events. At this rich event, Keith sticks out like a sore thumb. Homeless, desperately broke, and with nothing to his name but his horse Red, Keith entered the Trials because he had nothing else left. He came to win the billion-dollar grand purse, expecting it to be tough. He didn't expect to make friends with the most loyal, amazing riders this side of the Milky Way--or a deadly enemy of the Crown Prince of the Galra Empire.[Temporary hiatus]





	1. Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to my highly self-indulgent Hidalgo fanfiction featuring Voltron characters. (seriously, if you've seen Hidalgo... this is more Hidalgo fic than Voltron fic I s2g) This fic has been my project, my baby, for the past several months and will include frequent illustrations where I can. If you have any questions about the worldbuilding, please ask!! I've put a lot of time into the behind-the-scenes stuff, including Keith's backstory, and I'm more than willing to chat about those in the comments or do a spin-off if you'd like me to.
> 
> I had to repost this because Ao3 messed up the dates each chapter was posted so they were all backdated too far and the story got lost in the tag ;n;

**Four days until the VET**

 

The sun blooms on the edge of the planet like a brilliant white flower.  Keith shields his eyes against the sudden glare of it, knowing they’ll land within a half hour now.  He’s eager to get off this ship, and he suspects Red must be, too, down in the hold of the ship.  It’s not the first time they’ve traveled to compete, and the mare always gets antsy right before landing. 

Once the sunrise becomes boring, Keith turns away from the window to the rest of the passengers mulling about.  They’re all here for the Voltron Endurance Trials too, some of them riders, a handful trainers, but most of them owners.  The spectators will arrive later, closer to the start of the Trials.  Keith likes to think he can pick out the riders from the meager crowd.  There’s one human, lean as a whip with calloused hands, but he’s chattier than any horse person Keith’s met before.  Another human is built like a brick house, but has a down-to-earth, kind manner about him Keith could see soothing a flighty horse easily.  The third human is tiny and no-nonsense—constructed along the lines of a jockey and skinny enough (whether from training or genes, Keith can’t tell) their gender is anyone’s guess.  Everyone else looks soft and rich, like an owner; or old and steely, like a trainer. 

The door from the hold opens and draw’s Keith’s attention.  A lithe Galra-looking person enters the room, closing the door quietly behind him as he casts a calculated gaze around the room.  Keith squints at him, meeting his eyes levelly when they meet.  Probably a rider.  He doesn’t have the look of an owner, and since he just came from the hold, he could have been visiting his horse.  He’s not accompanied by a grizzled endurance veteran either, nor does he have the look of one, which makes Keith suspect he could be an owner-trainer-rider.  A direct competitor in Keith’s own category. 

The Galra moves on and Keith looks over his shoulder at the planet, significantly closer now.  He can see the individual buildings of the VET complex and landing site below, but they’re still too far away to pick up on any sort of detail. 

The engineered planet created for the VET is remarkably Earth-like.  Of course, the terraformers and planetary engineers behind it took the utmost care to recreate seven of Earth’s unique biomes on a small planet exactly 2,000 miles in circumference.  It really doesn’t deserve the title of planet, given some of the surrounding asteroids dwarf it, but the marvels of modern technology allow it to pull the gravity of a much larger body.  It’s such a faithful recreation on-planet horses coming from Earth, like Red, often can’t tell the difference.  Keith’s thankful for that, given how much difficulty Red had had adjusting to Mars before their qualifying race there.  The mare had been in fits over the gravity and atmosphere for nearly a week before she finally calmed down—Keith’s not eager to repeat the experience, especially not when the stakes are so high and there’s so little time before the race.  This ship is the last one carrying horses to arrive.

The captain comes on the intercom then:  “please take a seat, we are entering the atmosphere and preparing for final descent.  We hope your flight to the home planet of the Voltron Endurance Trials has been enjoyable.”

Keith looks around the room once before slipping out the door, down into the hold.  He’d rather be with Red during entry in case she freaks out.

The narrow staircase down into the hold is steep.  Keith picks his way down it carefully, finding himself in a wide hallway lined with large stalls on one side.  The first dozen are filled with horses.  Some of them call out to him as he passes, whickering softly in hopes he’ll give them a treat.  He doesn’t pay them much attention.  It’s only when he reaches the stall holding a small, reddish mare does he stop, putting his hands on the bars and giving a low whistle.

The roan mare turns her head to look at him, snorting when she recognizes him.  “Hey, Red.”  Keith reaches a hand through the bars, and Red walks over to get her ears scratched.  The ship begins to rumble as it hits the outer atmosphere of the VET planet and Red throws her head into the air.  Keith murmurs soothing things to her in a low tone and the mare half-listens to him, keeping one ear towards him even as she paces the stall anxiously.  Keith’s fine with that as long as she doesn’t start rearing or kicking.

Around them the other horses are agitated by the ship’s vibrations and the roaring of air against its hull.  Keith just stands and talks, holding on to the bars of the stall for stability until the worst of re-entry is over.  It takes several minutes for the most violent shaking to end, and Keith looks around cursorily to make sure the other horses are alright.  Several have laid down in their stalls.  They look like seasoned travelers.  Red continues to pace, as do several others.   Upstairs in the passenger cabin Keith hears the captain on the intercom again and figures they must be landing in about five minutes.  He gives Red a soft goodbye, promising to see her in a few minutes, and returns to the cabin, slipping in unnoticed by the other passengers.

The landing pad surges up to meet the ship suddenly, dirt already hard-baked from the heat of many ships’ thrusters.  A soft bump signals they’ve finally, officially arrived.  Keith exits as quickly as possible, grabbing his worn duffel bag and pushing out the door before the captain finishes welcoming them to the VET planet.  It’ll be a moment before the crew starts unloading the horses, but Keith waits impatiently by the doors in the belly of the ship, ready to take Red as soon as he can.  She got Keith in quite a bit of trouble on Mars for making a handler bleed when she bit them while being unloaded.

True to form, Red comes out with her head high in the air, doing her best to drag the crewmember leading her.  Fortunately, they’re bulky enough she can’t quite bully them off the ship any faster, and they realize quickly who Keith is and why he’s there, handing Red off to him wordlessly.  Keith gives a small nod.  It only takes a moment for Keith to lead Red a distance away from the other horses and give her a cursory look-over.  None of her wraps came loose during the trip and she didn’t even roll in her stall. 

“All horses need to report here!”  Keith turns to see an official in the blue and grey colors of the VET waving a clipboard in the air.  A few other riders and trainers have collected their horses from the crew and are filing over towards the official.  As they draw near, Keith sees they have a microchip reader in addition to a clipboard and are scanning each horse.  When they scan Red, Keith gets a flash of the information on the reader’s screen, but it’s in a script he can’t read. 

“You’re on the south wing.  You requested outdoor keep and a double-fenced paddock,” the official intones and Keith nods to confirm.  They extend one of their four arms towards the south wing of the sprawling VET complex and Keith sets off.  Unlike many other riders, this is Keith’s first time at the VET.  He’s heard the complex is new this year.  It’s a low, white building with a shining metal roof and true to word it looks brand new, untouched by the particular variety of dirt that comes with horses.  They pass through the building on their way to the outdoor paddocks and inside it’s similarly pristine.  The concrete aisle is unmarred by dings and nicks from metal shoes and not a single tail hair or sawdust shaving is out of place.  The horses in the stalls are quiet, either chewing idly on hay or dozing in the comfortable warmth of the late morning.  It’s such a perfect recreation of Earth Keith almost forgets he’s half a galaxy away from his home.  Judging by the way Red drops her head and blows out a heavy sigh, she’s feeling the same thing.

The paddock is situated a little ways from the barn.  A small run-in shed with an automatic waterer stands at the far end of it, and the sign on the fence next to the gate reads,

Red

Rider/Trainer/Owner:  Keith Kogane

Feed:  Hay only 2x daily, ½ bale per day

Supplements:  None

Special Needs:  None

Notes:  Will bite

Before turning Red loose, Keith walks around the perimeter to check the fences.  He examines the waterer, making sure it works and tasting the cool water that wells up when he presses down on the plate.  Satisfied, he removes Red’s halter and watches fondly as she immediately trots to the center of the paddock and flops down on the ground to roll.  He stays a few minutes until Red has run around the paddock several times, stretching her legs and conducting her own thorough investigation of her new lodging, and started grazing on the brilliantly green grass.

Part of Keith wishes he could just set up a cot in Red’s run-in and stay there with her.  The weather on the planet is carefully controlled, just like everything else, so Keith knows the days leading up to the actual race will be temperate.  Once the race starts, anything goes, but until then it’ll be clear skies and balmy days, comfortable nights.  But there’s specific accommodation for the riders.  On the other side of the tall, leafy trees that surround the barn there’s a cluster of tall hotel-like buildings.  Somewhere in one of those buildings is Keith’s room. 

Keith takes his time meandering over to the buildings, detouring through the barn and by the north paddocks.  Most of the other horses he sees are larger than Red.  Some are bizarre colors.  A sapphire blue horse with a deep, trumpeting voice neighs at Keith as he walks past and idly he wonders what sort of off-planet breed it is, whether it’s from an aquatic planet or not.

It’s only when he actually reaches the buildings does Keith realize he’s barely seen any other people apart from the crewmembers of the ship and the officials.  Where did they all go? he wonders uneasily.

“Are you a rider?”  Keith turns to see a Taujeerian VET official hurrying towards him.  He nods.  “The briefing for the race is already happening in Hall 3.  Hurry!”

Keith makes his way to Hall 3, sliding in the cracked-open door and drawing the attention of only a few nearby riders.  It’s dark, the only light coming from the screen at the front of the room.  A race official is explaining one of the biomes, most likely for the benefit of the alien and off-planet riders.  As a native of Earth, Keith has a slight advantage.

“...any further questions about the biomes?” the presenter asks, and nobody responds.  “Excellent.  The race itself is 1,000 miles, from one half of the planet to the other.  The beginning point is in temperate savannah.  The endpoint is in the desert.  You may take any path through any biome you choose.

“You will be required to make contact with a check-in point every three to five days to receive food and any necessary medical attention.  Your horses will be examined to make sure they are in good health.  If your horse has sustained any injuries or lameness, you will be subject to disqualification.”

A Galra raises their hand.  “How will we know where the check-in points are?  What if we have an emergency and need help?”

“Good question.”  The presenter clicks to the next slide.  An image of a device that looks like a cross between an antique smartphone and a remote control comes up.  “This is your communicator.  It tracks your global position and reports in real-time for owners, trainers, and spectators to view.  It will tell you the location of check-in points and will serve as the race officials’ means of communication with you.  Any pertinent announcements or emergency communication will happen through this device.”

The presenter moves on to some more minutia and Keith zones out for a good ten minutes, until a burning question pops into his mind:  how dangerous is this race?  At that point, the presenter opens the floor for questions.

“How dangerous is the race?” Keith’s own voice surprises him.  All eyes in the room turn to him and his cheeks ignite self-consciously.  Judging by some riders’ expressions, it’s a rookie question.  I can’t be the only rookie here, there’s got to be others wondering the same thing, Keith tells himself, but doesn’t quite believe it.

“We control the weather of the planet so that it never reaches extremes that could significantly harm any race participants.  Additionally, there are no predatory or overly dangerous animals living here.  Any danger comes from terrain, or other riders, but it is overall less dangerous than one would expect a race on the authentic Earth to be,” the presenter explains.  The audience turns back around, finally leaving Keith alone.  The presenter’s answer both reassures and worries Keith.  No predators and no possibility of tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, or extreme storms are all good things.  Any danger comes from other riders, however, is ominous as hell and makes the pit of Keith’s stomach twist.  His eyes dart about the room, sizing up all his competitors.  Who here is dangerous?

The slender Galra from the ship looks over his shoulder, eyes meeting Keith’s for a moment just long enough for Keith to register their sharp purple irises.  A thrill shoots down Keith’s spine and the Galra looks back to the front of the room. 


	2. The Target On His Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first day of training doesn't go the way Keith planned.

**THREE DAYS UNTIL THE VET**

Keith wakes early, leaving his room before the sun has crept over the treetops.  Golden light leaks over the horizon, gently warming Keith’s face as he makes his way to Red’s paddock.  There are few other race participants at the barn this early, Keith gives each a nod as he passes them.  At the end of the barn, there’s a human chattering loudly to his horse.  His voice is too loud for the almost-sacred quiet of the dawn. 

“You’re such a gorgeous girl, Vada, you’re the absolute prettiest,” he’s cooing to an admittedly handsome mare.  She cranes her face over the man’s head to whicker in a friendly way at Keith as he passes.  The man turns to follow his mare’s gaze.  “Hey man.  Good to see another human around here,” he calls out, just as friendly as his horse.  Keith assesses the man.  He’s a string bean with close-cropped hair and a tan that speaks to caring for his own horse and putting in hours in the saddle.  The smile he gives is easy and genuine.

“There’s a few of us,” Keith responds.  The man turns back around, reaching up to rub the mare’s nose with some babbled nonsense.  Keith wants to believe he’s not dangerous.  There’s a lot to be said about the personality of horses and how they match their riders.  And a horse that sweet couldn’t have a cruel rider.

Red trumpets with delight when she sees Keith.  She trots up to the fence and blows a hard breath in Keith’s face, drawing a chuckle out of him.  “You look ready to go.”  He brings her into the barn and locates his tack easily.  There’s two other horses cross-tied in the aisle, leaving plenty of space for Red.  The horse at the furthest end of the barn is one of the biggest animals Keith has ever seen, surrounded by a group of three Galra.  The horse closer to Keith and Red is the same mare from earlier—what had her human called her?  Vada?

“Ooh, what tack are you using?” Vada’s human leans under her neck, pausing in grooming her.

“Uh,” Keith pauses, looking down at the worn black saddle he’d bought used in New Mexico eight years ago right after coming into possession of Red.  “Tack that fits.”

The man gives Keith a searching look a moment before bursting out laughing.  “Who do you ride for?  I’m Lance McClain, I’m Earth’s representative.”

Keith whistles long, low, and impressed. This goofy string bean of a man must be a seriously good rider to represent Earth. Everyone here is, but it’s been decades since an off-planet rider has won the VET.   The Earth rider always has the largest target on their back, from what Keith’s seen of previous VET news coverage.

“Keith Kogane. I ride for myself.  OTR.”  Lance nods appreciatively and returns to grooming Vada.

“On planet or off-planet?” Lance’s tone is a forced sort of casual that gives away his attempt to scope Keith out as a competitor.

“On-planet.” Keith edges away from Lance to attend to Red, who’s starting to fidget.  The mare’s doing her best to crane her head over her shoulder while blowing big, menacing breaths at Vada who looks like she couldn’t care less.  Keith doesn’t want to put too much stock in Red’s overreaction, knowing she can be ornery towards other horses, but at the same time he has too much sense to discount his horse’s intuition.  Besides, he knows Lance is someone to watch out for now.  Easygoing and friendly as he seems, he’s the race favorite and Keith knows all too well how people change after the starting pistol fires.

The moment Keith boosts himself into the saddle, his soul settles. The quivering anxieties that had been buzzing about the back of his mind quiet, and he follows the signs around the barn to one of three training trails. The day is glorious and fair, and once under the trees the light goes cool and dappled. Red lets out a deep sigh and smacks her lips contentedly.  They walk for a while and Keith sinks into a meditative state, lulled by the rhythm of Red’s walk.  The race will be fine, Keith tells himself as he focuses on the loose sway of his hips, the warmth of Red’s body on his calves.  The race will be fine.

The woods are quietly alive with a light breeze and the sounds of birds.  Distantly, Keith marvels at how well the engineers recreated Earth, then veers away from that thought before homesickness can take root.  He closes his eyes and lets all Red’s movements wash over him, amplified by his lack of sight.  Each individual fall of her foot on the dirt trail, the bob of her head, the way every motion reverberates up into Keith’s body.  Nothing matters except Red and Keith and the way they move together.

Keith nudges Red into a trot.  Her hooves tap out a level music that melds with the birds, wind, and Keith's own breath.  It’s easy, so easy, to move with her motion.  It’s freeing for both of them.  It doesn’t take long before Red grows tired of trotting and starts to strain at the reins.  Keith holds her steady, though he longs to let her go and feel the forest whip by him while she gallops along beneath him.  They have to save their energy for the race, and galloping around the woods, as fun as that would be, would be unproductive.  Red’s plenty fit; her enthusiasm to run is evidence of it. 

She roots suddenly, trying to pull the leather through Keith’s fingers, but he clenches his fists and pulls her head back.  “Nice try,” he mutters.  Red gives him one displeased ear.  Her eagerness is wearing Keith down through her constant pulling and he relents, deciding he’ll hold out as long as he can while Red behaves, then he’ll let her go in a little bit so that it seems like it was his decision all along to let her gallop. 

It might not be the best idea, though, because Red seems to know exactly what Keith is doing and behaves herself so perfectly Keith almost gets annoyed with her.  He jiggles the reins, just barely provoking her to throw her head or take off like she normally would, but the mare gives no reaction other than a flickering ear.  If she was a human, she’d be laughing at him.

The perfect opportunity arises when the trail opens up, the forest falling away to reveal a swath of verdant mowed gallops stretching across the gently-rolling hills.  Keith’s self-control strains, then Red lets out the softest whinny of longing, and it fails on the spot.

He drops the reins and taps her ribs.  She blasts off like a rocket. 

Red tears across the hills like a wildfire, ripping the air out of Keith’s lungs.  Her feet thunder faster than their hearts combined; Keith is only barely aware of the slight grin on his face.  It’ll never cease to amaze him how searingly fast Red is, how she moves so powerfully, so violently, while Keith crouches stiller than a mirror pond over her back.  Her breath comes rough and rhythmic with every stride.  It takes no time at all her for her to crest the last hill before the gallops end and Keith leans back to pull her up, but Red puts her head down and plows forward.

_I’ve got more, so much more_ , she seems to say.  Keith grins for real, body pulsing with adrenaline, and pulls her around, aiming her straight back at where they came from.  He shoots a look over his shoulder in time to see the wide arc Red carved in the soft grass before she plunges down over the hill and takes off.  If she was fast before, she’s at light speed now.  Her hoofbeats melt together into a roar, the wind whipping tears from the corner of Keith’s eyes.  A flash of worry like lightning strikes Keith’s mind, that Red’s moving too fast for her feet to keep up.  But no, he knows to trust her.  The mare’s never done him wrong before. 

The second hill looms before them and Keith taps his heels against Red’s ribs.  She jumps forward in response, her energy boundless.  Red bursts upwards, clearing the top of the hill with more speed than Keith has ever felt from her but he knows she hasn’t even approached her limits, if she has any.  It might be arrogant, but Keith knows he has the fastest horse in this race.  She’s no on-planet Thoroughbred or off-planet racing breed famous intergalactically for impossible speed, but she’s Red and she’s indomitable. 

They fly over the grass that ripples beneath them like water.  Keith tightens his grip on the reins and presses himself flatter over Red’s neck, breathlessly still despite his horse’s violent churning gallop underneath him.  He can only hear the roaring wind.  He feels everything else.  Red’s heartbeat, her breath in time with her hoofbeats, his own breath tearing at his throat, the terrifying speed that teeters on the edge of losing control.  Like riding the edge of a knife; at any moment Keith could fall.

The final hill is no obstacle.  Red powers up it like it’s nothing.  She leaps up, the sudden morning sun on the hilltop dazzling Keith’s eyes, and he reels her in.  It takes strength and Red fights him, grabbing the bit between her teeth and kicking forward, but Keith hauls on the reins, bridging them across her withers, and forces her down into a canter.  Her mighty, huffing breath becomes immediately apparent.  Her ribs heave with each breath, bouncing Keith around as he brings her gradually down into a trot.  They circle around at a slowing trot until Red calms down and evens out. 

Then Keith is hit with a bolt of panic and the realization that they have an audience.

The bit clacks between Red’s teeth as she chews on it happily, looking up and over at the collection of horses and humans standing at the edge of the gallops.  Keith’s stomach drops.  He didn’t necessarily want anyone else seeing Red run.  He knows it’s only information that makes him more of a target and in other races, that just meant the other riders would push him harder, to try to tire Red prematurely, but in this race, the riders are dangerous and Keith doesn’t want to find out firsthand how that comes to pass.  Still, though, Keith trots over to his audience and recognizes Lance and Vada first.  The other two horses are enormous, completely dwarfing Red.  Lance and the biggest horse, a purplish sort of roan, have an entourage of humans and Galra, respectively, on foot.  The third horse is a striking jet black with faded grey mane and tail, and the rider is the lithe Galra-but-not-quite-fully-Galra-looking person that was on the ship with Keith, that gave him that intense look at the briefing.

“Damn!” Lance hollers by way of greeting, before Keith has reached them completely.  “What is she?”

“Uh,” Keith draws even with them, still catching his breath.  “She’s, um, from Nevada.”  Keith is lying.  He doesn’t know where Red is from.  He got her at a mustang roundup and last-chance auction at the corners where New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado meet.  She could’ve come from anywhere.  She could be a mustang or a well-bred horse that was given up.  That auction is hundreds of horses’ last chance before they’re shipped to Mexico for meat, which means they’re dirt cheap, but often lame or unbroken or unusable.  Keith had taken a chance with $50 on Red because she’d been sound and still fighting the handlers when every other horse was sick and had given up on life.

Keith doesn’t feel like making a fool of himself though.  This competition is the most elite in the galaxy.  Everyone here has imperial, intergalactic connections.  Their horses are the most highly-bred creatures from the most prestigious bloodlines in existence.  Riding a mutt of a mare from the clearance bin of the Southwest is practically an insult.

Lance doesn’t seem to notice Keith’s clumsy lie.  The Galra-looking rider raises a skeptical eyebrow.  The human on the massive roan doesn’t react to the situation at all.  “Nevada, eh?  That’s where this one’s from,” he proudly claps his horse on the neck.

_That must be what Vada is short for,_ Keith thinks.

“She’s very fast,” the Galra rider speaks up.  His voice is sinuous, slippery as his appearance.  It would be hypnotic if it didn’t set Keith’s alarm bells off in his head.

“She’s been cooped up for a while,” Keith rationalizes, trying in vain to convince them that her speed was a fluke and neither Red nor himself pose any sort of threat or challenge.  The Galra rider hums. 

“You shouldn’t be exhausting your horse like this three days before the competition,” one of the Galra trainers on foot speaks up sharply.  Keith narrows his eyes at them.  Red isn’t exhausted; she’s definitely tired (but that’s not a bad thing, given how otherwise she’d be posturing and picking fights with these other horses right now), but she’s happy and still perfectly sound.  Despite these bred horses’ propensity to injury, nothing Keith has ever done with Red has ever made her lame in the least—and they’ve done some reckless things.  Mars had been tough, but Red’s hooves had been tougher.

“This is your first VET, isn’t it?” the Galra rider asks and Keith doesn’t deign to respond other than an ambiguous tilt of the head.  The Galra rider presses on, undeterred.  “Where is your trainer?  Do they know you’re out here galloping about carelessly?”

Lance and the other human rider watch Keith tensely.

“I’m OTR, so no, and thanks for the advice,” Keith shoots a look at the Galra trainer on the ground by the big roan’s shoulder, “but I think I know my horse the best, and I know how to prepare her to win a race.”  Keith resists adding a snarky “after all, I did have to win two qualifiers to get here” and steers Red around the group before the situation can get any worse.  He keeps his chin high as he goes, but catches the wide-eyed, impressed look from the silent human rider.

“That was a fucking mistake,” Keith mutters to himself as Red trots leisurely back along the trail to the barn.  He’s gone and made an enemy out of that Galra rider, who might very well be OTR due to his lack of a trainer out at the gallops, and those other Galra trainers.  Though Keith suspects he made an impression on their rider, he wouldn’t put it past the trainers to tell the rider to target Keith.  The Galra are ruthless like that, in everything they do.

The worst part of it, Keith realizes, is that they all knew each other.  They’re all connected.  Keith knows nobody.  He can’t count Lance really, because it seems like the guy is just that friendly by nature.  He’s also resolved to not trust anyone as far as he can throw them, and seeing as Keith’s strength is in his legs, he won’t really be trusting much of anybody.  He needs to know what his competition is.  He needs to know who that Galra OTR rider is.  He needs to know who the human with the Galra trainers is, and who he rides for.  He needs to know all the 496 other competitors in this race too.

Those thoughts occupy Keith as he untacks Red and rubs her down thoroughly.  She rolls happily, snorting into the grass, when he turns her out.  Knowing the competition is crucial.  Keith has to be aware of who to beat, and who’s going to try to beat him.  He’s got to find profiles on the riders.  They have to exist, because Keith distinctly recalls filling out some very exacting forms and being interviewed after he qualified for the VET.  He’d barely finished taking care of Red after the Mars qualifier, still reeling from his victory and from the idea of the prize money, when an alien in official Voltron clothing had rushed up to him with a cameraman.  They’d peppered him with questions about his horse and riding experience, most of which Keith had been able to dodge through a combination of exhaustion and dazed confusion.  Then the official had congratulated him on making it into the Voltron Endurance Trials and handed him a slim holo-clipboard of forms.

“They have to be accessible somewhere,” Keith mutters to himself, stepping through the automatic doors of the riders’ quarters and into a small, warm body.

“Watch it!”

Keith snaps back to reality and looks down to find the tiny jockey-like human he’d seen earlier on the ship in.  “Sorry,” Keith apologizes quickly, then notices their tablet on the ground by his feet.  Keith’s own face is staring back up at him.  He makes eye contact with the human, the question already on his lips.  They snatch the tablet up, flipping through several screens until Keith’s image disappears, only to be replaced by the lithe Galra Keith is starting to dislike.

“Are those… rider profiles?” he asks slowly.

“Yeah, you haven’t seen them yet?  Why hasn’t your trainer showed you?” they reply defensively.

“I’m OTR,” Keith says for what feels like the hundredth time.  “Should’ve said that in my profile.”  The human’s cheeks flush.

“So you just don’t know what’s going on?  Is that why you were late to the briefing?” they ask, and now it’s Keith’s turn to blush self-consciously.  He doesn’t respond, but he knows that’s just as telling as any response.  They sigh.

“I’m Katie Gunderson.  I ride for the Olkari.  You can call me Pidge, though.”  Pidge sticks her hand out.  Keith stares at it for a second before shaking it.

“You already know me.”

“It’s still polite to introduce yourself.”

Keith bites back the smallest grin.  Pidge is sharp as a whip; he appreciates that.  “Keith Kogane.  I ride for myself.”

“Do you… want to get breakfast?” Pidge asks, blush creeping back into her cheeks, though Keith can’t tell why.  It’s not an embarrassing question, is it?

“Sure.”

Pidge nods and continues out the door.  “Wait—Pidge—isn’t the dining room in here?” Keith calls after her.

She stops a few steps away from Keith and turns towards him.  “It is, but I’m not going there for breakfast.  Trust me?”

“Uh—”

“It’s nothing bad—let me restart.  I’m just going to have breakfast with my horse.  I don’t like networking with all the other riders.  They’re too cutthroat.  I let my trainer and the owners do that.  Plus, I’ve got Earth food,” she says enticingly, pulling a paper bag out of the satchel slung across her chest.

“Okay.”  Keith can get behind that reasoning.  He follows her back down the path he had just traveled until they reach the barn.  It’s busier now, and all the spots in the aisle are filled with horses being groomed and checked over by aliens of every species.  Pidge weaves through the hubbub until she reaches a stall, slides open the door, and beckons Keith inside.  A small, green mare lying in the bedding whickers at Pidge when she enters.  The size of the stall dwarfs the little horse and her equally little rider.  Pidge kneels at the horse’s head and cups her nose, pressing a kiss to the white star between her eyes.  The mare lets out another contented whuff of breath, shuttered by Pidge’s hands.

“This is Duva Tolle,” Pidge says after a moment, looking around to Keith again.  Keith nods, unsure of what to do.  “C’mere.”  Pidge pats the bedding beside her, settling down and getting comfy.  Keith casts a quick glance around.  The bedding is immaculately clean.  Seems safe enough to sit.

Duva Tolle stretches her slender neck out towards Keith to poke her neat little muzzle in his face curiously.  He chuckles and lets her sniff until she’s satisfied.  Then she drops her nose into Pidge’s lap and closes her eyes.  Keith has to laugh incredulously.

“I’ve never seen a horse act like a dog,” he says. 

Pidge gives him a sidelong glance.  “She’s 100% equine, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“Oh—no—” Keith is taken aback.  “I just—I’m used to my mare.  She’s not this affectionate.”

Satisfied, Pidge nods and takes her tablet and the bag of food out of her satchel.  She nudges the food towards Keith and he takes it, pawing through the bag of bagels and doughnuts while Pidge does her thing on her tablet.  He’s lucky Pidge didn’t take greater offense to his comment.  An insinuation of cheating through having a hybrid animal would be grounds for disqualification and a huge disgrace, not to mention an insult to the entire Olkari world.  This is as much a diplomatic convention as it is a horse race. 

“Okay, look at this,” Pidge says suddenly, breaking the silence and interrupting Keith’s train of thought.  “Since you don’t have a trainer and apparently no friends, I’ll be your friend.”  She turns her tablet around and props it against Duva Tolle’s face.  “This is everyone in the OTR category.  Scroll through.”

Keith shifts closer to Pidge so their knees bump together.  He misses her slight blush.  He’s too focused on the names and pictures on the screen.  There’s 50 people in the OTR category, which makes it a tiny fraction of the overall race, but it’s one of the most interesting and hotly contested categories.  It’s the only one that depends singularly on the skill of the rider and horse together.  As good as the representative riders are, they get into the race on connections and are exempted from the requirement of winning at least two VET-approved qualifying races.

Each name and picture is unfamiliar.  The first twelve riders are humans.  Then Keith swipes left and a familiar face is staring up at him from the screen.  He hisses through his teeth.  “I knew it.”

The Galra-looking rider.  Keith scans his page.  His name is Lotor.  He’s a Galra-Altean hybrid and—hang on—crown prince of the Galra Empire?!  Keith looks up at Pidge and he knows his distress must be written on his face.

“This guy is the Galra prince?  What the hell is he doing in OTR?”

Pidge leans over to see the screen.  “Oh, yeah.  There was a lot of controversy about him this year.  Did you—nevermind, I already know you didn’t hear.  Okay, see, a lot of us here, this isn’t our first time here.  This is my second VET.  This is his seventh.  For the past 28 years he’s been the Galra rider.  It was really shocking when the Galra Emperor announced their rider this year and it turned out to be a slave.  A human slave.”

Keith gapes and Pidge continues, apparently relishing in his reactions.

“Something happened behind the scenes.  People said they had a fight, and that they’re going to split the Empire if Lotor wins, or he’ll become the Emperor if he wins.  We don’t know anything for sure, of course, but we do know he’s out for blood.  He’s got way more riding on this race than any of us.”

“Shit,” Keith curses softly, damning himself for letting Lotor see Red’s speed now.

“It gets better.  Look at his horse.”  The tone Pidge uses doesn’t reassure Keith.  He clicks on his horse’s name.  Thayserix.  A sinister name if Keith ever heard one.

Sure enough, it’s the black-and-grey horse Keith had seen just an hour ago out on the gallops.  His impression had been of a big, unfriendly, stallion, so he’s surprised to see she’s a mare.  17.2 hands—huge!—Komar and Altean pacer cross.  That explains it.  Poetic, Keith thinks wryly, that the Galra-Altean hybrid rider would have a Galra-Altean hybrid horse.  The spare description of Thayserix says only that she’s fast, agile, well-rounded, and a capable jumper.  There are links to her pedigree, but that doesn’t interest Keith.

“Who’s the Galra rider?” he looks up at Pidge.  He suspects he must’ve seen the Galra rider this morning—the human on the huge horse, surrounded by the Galra trainers—but he wants to make sure.  Wordlessly, Pidge leans over and taps on the screen a few times, navigating out of OTR and to the Galra page.

That’s him.  The Galra rider is human, Japanese if Keith had to pick an ethnicity, and has a big scar across his face.  He’s also got a shock of grey hair hanging over his eyes.  He’s dressed nicely and looks healthy in the photo; if Pidge hadn’t told Keith this man was a slave, he might not have guessed.  If he’d seen this guy’s picture in any other context, he probably would’ve asked for his number; he’s that handsome.  Though, it makes sense the Galra wouldn’t want a sickly-looking rider, or to widely publicize their rider was enslaved.  It seems like Pidge might have some insider information—probably from her trainer or the owners, Keith thinks.

“He’s human, though,” Keith protests.  “What did Earth have to say about it?”

Pidge gives a half-shrug.  “There’s not much they can do, seeing as they don’t have enough information on the guy to verify if he’s a citizen of Earth or not.  Terran diplomats couldn’t get the Empire to sign a repatriation treaty, and the Galra aren’t forthcoming with their stats on prisoners and slaves” she adds with a grumble.

It’s widely known the Galra Empire relies heavily on slavery, but no amount of diplomatic efforts from a vast array of worlds and coalitions have been able to convince them to stop the practice, and nobody is willing to risk intergalactic war to stop it.  The Empire is just too huge.  It would be mutually assured destruction at best.  Keith grimaces, but reads on.

The stats on the Galra rider are bare bones.  His name is listed as “Champion,” which strikes Keith as an odd combination of arrogant and sad.  What’s his real name?  Keith would love to ask, but it seems like the Galra wouldn’t let him out of their sight.  He checks out Champion’s horse.  Another mare.  Keith’s pleasantly surprised; usually there’s a strong bias towards stallions and geldings in competition.

She’s 20 hands, which is thoroughly unsurprising given what Keith had seen.  Full-blooded Komar, the Galra’s own breed of horse.  Her name is Daibazaal.  It’s only slightly better than Thayserix in terms of sinister-ness.  At least she looks more friendly than Thayserix.  Her description is more fleshed-out and also includes pedigree links, but nothing Keith sees flags her as a difficult horse to beat.

“This is—mind if I…?” Keith lifts the tablet off of Duva Tolle’s face.  Pidge nods and her mare sleeps on, completely unbothered by her role as tablet stand/lap warmer.  She absently plays with the horse’s ear, sniggering every time she flicks one to throw Pidge’s fingers off.  Then she starts gnawing on a bagel.  Keith surreptitiously looks himself up.

He winces slightly at how bad he looks in his picture.  It looks like a mugshot.  All the information seems correct and normal, however, and his name spelled right.  His bio is exactly what he’d given the VET officials:

Keith Kogane is a human rider from the Southwestern United States of America on Earth.  He has been riding for twenty years and is proficient at Western and English styles.  He has participated in endurance races for four years.  This is his first VET.

Bland, descriptive without saying anything, not giving away enough information to make him a target.  Keith is satisfied with it.  He checks on Red’s profile and it’s much the same.  That is, until he gets to her description.  It barely resembles the one he gave the officials.

Red is a mare of undisclosed breeding.  15.2hh, hardy, agile, and unfriendly, but possessing incredible speed and stamina.  Excels at reserving energy until the home stretch and is capable of stunning sprints, especially when pressured.  Displays remarkable soundness in bad terrain.

“They changed Red’s description,” Keith says out loud.  Pidge looks up at him. 

“How?”

“This isn’t what I gave them.  I said she was hardy, agile, and an easy keeper.  I called her well-rounded.  They—how did they write this?” Keith can’t keep the anger out of his voice.  This passage is enough to make his horse a high-value target in the overall race, let alone the OTR category.  It bares his winning strategy that he worked so hard to keep secret.

“They must’ve reviewed the coverage of your qualifying races.  If they don’t think the descriptions are adequate they’ll write their own.  It’s not wrong, is it?” Pidge asks, almost innocently.

“No, it’s not, and that’s why I’m upset,” Keith grinds out.  “It says way too much.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Pidge hedges.  “Look, everyone else’s descriptions are like that too.  It’s to give us a good idea of what we’re up against.  You don’t know it, but the terrain of the VET… it’s not like anything you’ve ridden before.  Any strategy you had coming in probably won’t work here.  It levels the playing field.”

Keith takes a deep breath and tries to let Pidge’s words reassure him.  She would know better, having a trainer and being a veteran and all, but the look he gives her must still speak to his anger and worry.

“Okay, I get it.  Having experience here is an advantage, but you’re good.  You had to qualify to get here.  You’ll do fine.  Plus, your mare sounds amazing.”

“Thanks,” Keith sighs, letting his eyes drop back to the tablet in his lap.  He goes back to Thayserix’s page, and sure enough her description is structured just like Red’s.  Then he flips through the rest of the OTR category and determines Lotor is his biggest threat there.  Given that Pidge had also called him “out for blood,” there’s a good chance he’s the most dangerous rider in the race.  It also looks like he’s already started to size Keith up.  After the grand purse, the OTR category purse is the second largest.  Even if Keith can’t win the race, he’s got to do his best to win OTR.

The grand purse is 6 million inter-planetary units.  On Earth, that’s a little more than a cool billion dollars.  With a B.  Billion.  Keith resists sighing longingly at the thought.  He’d be able to buy a house.  A farm.  No, a ranch.  He could keep Red for the rest of his life.  He could get more horses.  He wouldn’t have to be homeless and couch-surf anymore, living off Red’s back and wandering between ranches and towns looking for work as a courier, messenger, or cowhand-for-the-day.  He wouldn’t have to race in the dirty, illegal, underground quarter-mile tracks against doped-up Quarter Horses.  He wouldn’t have to run from debt collectors and bounty hunters.  He wouldn’t have to worry about not being able to pay for Red’s feed and care.  Even the OTR purse, at a comparatively meager 2.5 million IPU, could give Keith a better life than he’d even dreamed of.

“...hello….” Keith snaps back to reality to find Duva Tolle standing now, and Pidge waving her hand in his face, a faint smile on her lips.  “There you are.  I’m going to go ride now.  You can take the rest of these and my tablet on the condition that you swear on your life you’re going to give it back to me at communal dinner tonight.”

“You really want these doughnuts back tonight?  After I’ve eaten them?” Keith fires back with a grin and Pidge busts up laughing.  “For real, though; thanks.  I owe you.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Pidge waves him away and Keith really, really wants to believe her when she says that, but part of him knows she’ll come calling for a favor in the future.  That’s how these races work.  Riders play nice with each other before the race starts, storing up a bank of good favor.  Then they cash it in during the race in order to overtake someone, get an extra ration, or get help through a difficult area.  Nothing is free, not even friendship.  And here at the VET, that’s got to be happening on an even more intense level than on piddly little solar-system-level qualifiers.

Nevertheless, Keith takes the food and tablet gratefully and leaves Pidge to her horse.  He spends the rest of the morning into the early afternoon reading rider and horse profiles in the barren sanctuary of his room.  Lance’s profile hadn’t told Keith much he didn’t already know, other than Vada’s full name is Nevada Galaxy V and she comes from a long line of Anglo-Arabian endurance champions.  This is Lance’s third VET.  The profile makes him out to be uninteresting, and speaks nothing to his chattiness.

He recognizes the Balmeran Federation’s rider as having been on Keith’s shuttle.  He’s a big, gentle-looking human named Hunk Garrett who is apparently skilled at blacksmithing and veterinary nursing.  He’s one of few stallion riders, and his stallion Silas is just as big and gentle-looking as Hunk.  Silas’s bio, however, describes him as a “juggernaut.”  Keith notes that, and reminds himself to not let Hunk and Silas get ahead of him.  If they do, he might not be able to overtake them again if what the profile says about Silas’s stamina is true.

Then, as Keith is fishing around in the bag for the last doughnut, he comes across a very interesting sorting category.  He clicks on “Odds” and sucks powdered sugar off his fingertips as 500 names and numbers reshuffle themselves on the screen in front of him.  Though his curiosity is burning to know where he is, he starts at the top.  It’s clearly based on the betting pool, so Keith knows he has room to doubt its accuracy in predicting winners, but it’s still interesting to see how much (or how little) faith viewers and bettors are putting on each rider.  At the very top is Lance.  Unsurprising, given he’s won the VET once before and is Earth’s rider.  A safe bet.  Second below him is Lotor.  Keith has to wonder how much of that is his loyal fans, but it also makes sense given his vast experience and one prior win at the VET.  Third below them is the Altean rider, with whom Keith is unfamiliar.  He clicks on her profile.

Crown Princess Allura is a VET virgin, just like Keith.  Unlike Keith, though, she has the resources of the Altean Empire on her side, and twice Keith’s years of riding.  It seems her horse is more experienced than she is, having been ridden to victory by Allura’s father, the Altean King Alfor, two years ago.  Looks like that fame rubbed off on Allura.  The horse is one of the oldest Keith has seen so far, but is a pure-blooded Altean Pacer, a breed notorious for its longevity.  It’s a stallion named Fala; proud, strong, and experienced.  Impressed but not intimidated, Keith returns to the Odds list.

Keith finds Pidge and Hunk in the upper-middle of the list.  Unsurprising as well, given the Olkari and Balmeran Federation aren’t large enough or historically invested enough to devote mass amounts of resources to the curation of equestrian skills like the Galra, Alteans, and humans are.  And then, in the bottom third of the list, Keith finds himself.  He breathes a sigh of relief.  With no expectations, he can’t really be a target.  Lance, on the other hand, is going to have to watch his back.  Doubtless he and Allura and their horses have security teams.

Absentmindedly, Keith reaches back into the bag only to come up empty.  He frowns, then checks the time.  There’s still time before dinner is served, and he does have a tablet at his disposal.  Curiosity compels him to pull up the live stream of pre-race VET coverage.  Two human newscasters greet him, startlingly similar to local news on Earth.  The woman on the right is wearing a cherry-red suit and has an immaculately styled bob.  The woman on the left looks her polar opposite in an unbuttoned flannel shirt and tank top, her hair scraped back into a messy ponytail.  She looks like she came straight off of a ranch.

“...interest around the Galra Empire’s rider this year.  Jules, you were just down in the main barn, what can you tell us about this mysterious man?” the red woman asks her co-host.  That explains her appearance, Keith thinks.

“Well, Sandra, the Galra are keeping very tight security around their rider, not like in past years.  I wasn’t able to interview him, but I was able to speak to the lead trainer, Thace.”  Jules gestures to the screen behind her and Sandra.  It cuts to footage of Jules interviewing a tall Galra, having to reach up almost over her head to hold the microphone to his mouth.  He’s taken a bit of pity on her and is leaning down slightly to make her job easier, but it only serves to make him seem like he’s looming over her.

“We have decided to break with tradition this year, for the sake of innovation and having a better chance at winning the VET,” Thace is saying.  Keith can tell this is still a highly structured speech he’s probably been coached on.  “Our rider, whom we call the Champion, had to go through a series of highly competitive trials internal to the Galra Empire to be chosen, not unlike those who compete in the OTR category.”  A jab at Lotor.  “We have full faith he will produce an excellent performance.”

Jules brings the microphone back down to ask another question of Thace.  “Glad to hear it.  Can you tell us any more about the Champion’s background?  Where does he come from?  What sort of training and experience does he have?”  She thrusts the mic up into Thace’s airspace again.

“He is human, which is in compliance with VET regulations.  We had a great number of applicants for the position, and he was the most morphologically suited for horseback riding.”  An evasive answer.

“Better suited than a Galra rider?”  Jules asks pointedly, not even bothering to lower the mic.  Thace looks mildly uncomfortable, but not bothered.

“Simply better suited than the Galra applicants.  Now if you will excuse me I have something to attend to.”  Thace straightens right as a burst of noise erupts behind him.  The cameraman is quick on the uptake, dodging around the Galra’s bulk to see a flurry of motion, what looks like a scuffle of some sort, before a Galra even larger than Thace lunges in front of the camera’s lens with a gruff command to stop recording.  The video pauses, and coverage cuts back to Jules and Sandra in the studio.

“That’s really something,” Sandra says right off the bat.  “What happened at the end?  Can we go frame-by-frame?”

“The security team escorted us out of the barn right after Thace stopped speaking with us, so I didn’t get a clear look at what was going on,” Jules says, “but it was not horses fighting, and clearly the Galra don’t want us to see it.”

On Sandra’s command, the video reverses a few seconds and then walks through frame-by-frame.  It’s incredibly blurry due to the dim lighting in the barn, to the point where interpreting the blobs in the picture might be a Rorschach test.  “Look here,” says Jules, pointing, “this looks like the Champion.”

Keith squints at the screen, trying to see what Jules sees.  Then she traces the supposed outline of the Champion, and it becomes clear to Keith.  The left third of the screen is obscured by Thace’s arm, and the right edge is taken up by what looks like a horse’s hindquarters, but in the narrow gap in the center it looks like a man—the Champion—is being lifted off the ground by a Galra.  His arms and legs are thrown out to the side wildly.  The video advances a few frames and the Champion flails in slow motion until the security guard blocks the whole view.

“It looks like the Champion was trying to run away from the security team,” Sandra observes.  She glances over her shoulder at someone off-camera, pauses, then looks back to the camera and continues.  “There have been rumors that the Champion is, in fact, a slave.  It would make sense if this was an escape attempt.”

“That’s right, Sandra,” Jules supplies. “The Galra have been very edgy about their rider, and less forthcoming than usual with details on him.  None of the other riders I interviewed were able to speak with him, other than Earth’s rider, Lance McClain.”

Again, the coverage cuts to a video of Jules in the barn, but this time the height difference between her and her subject isn’t so ludicrous.  Lance flashes the camera an easygoing smile as Jules lightly questions him.

“I heard from your trainer that you rode with the Champion and Prince Lotor this morning,” she says.  “How did you arrange that?”

“Oh, it wasn’t any big deal,” Lance waves a hand.  “Just turns out we were all riding in the early morning.  I would’ve gone with another human buddy who came through, but he was in a rush to get on his horse and was out of here before I’d tacked up.”

Keith’s stomach lurches as he realizes Lance is talking about him.

Lance continues, “we ended up running into him on the gallops anyways.”

“And how did your ride go?” Jules presses him.

“It was totally fine.  I was just stretching Vada’s legs, really.  Y’know, you don’t want to push a horse too hard right before the race.  If they’re a little stir-crazy, it’s good, because then you get a burst of speed right off the starting line.”

Keith rolls his eyes, but Jules isn’t done with Lance yet.  “What about the Galra and Prince Lotor?”

“What about them?” Lance chuckles.  “They were totally cool with each other.  Didn’t talk much, but I talk so much that I practically did the talking for them.”  Jules giggles at that and Keith resists the urge to roll his eyes again.  At least Lance knows he’s on the obnoxious side.  “It was actually kind of an accident that we ended up riding together.  I went out with Iverson—hey Ives!” —Lance waves and yells to someone off-camera, laughing.  Keith guesses it must be his trainer— “and we ran into the Galra on the trail.  Then Lotor caught up to us by the time we got to the gallops, and the human guy was already there.”

“Do you know who this human is?” Jules asks with interest.  Lance bites his lip in concentration.

“Oh man, I’m so bad with names.  He was kind of awkward and had a mullet—” Keith bristles irrationally.   _It’s not a mullet, it’s part of growing your hair out!_   He’s snapped that line at so many people now, but Lance goes on— “he was OTR… oh yeah!  Keith.”

“And what did you think of him?”

“His horse is fu—crazy fast,” Lance corrects himself.  “He was running like a bat outta hell when we got there.  The Galra trainer guy Thace had a couple of opinions about it, and Keith didn’t seem to like the advice.”  Lance shrugs.  “Don’t really know what to think of him, but his horse is something to watch out for.”

Keith drops the tablet to the bed with a curse.  Thousands of people; spectators, riders, trainers alike; watch this broadcast.  And now Lance, Earth’s darling fucking Lance, has gone and said on intergalactic TV that Red is something to watch out for.  Keith and Red aren’t going to get any privacy until the start of the race.  Hating himself almost as much as he hates Lance in that moment, Keith picks the tablet up again to check his ranking in the Odds.  He watches with dismay as his ranking changes before his eyes, moving up to hover in the middle with Pidge.

Speaking of Pidge, Keith realizes it’s almost time for dinner.  He tosses the empty doughnut bag into the trash and gathers up the tablet, making his way down to the dining room and arriving early for dinner.  He lingers in the doorway, watching staff set up the tables and dishes of food on the buffet on the other side of the room.  Keith’s distantly thankful for the fact that this race is technically a celebration of human culture, because it means they serve mostly human food that Keith can recognize, and Keith definitely recognizes the smell of barbecue pulled pork.  His mouth waters.

“Hey, you’re early.”  Keith jumps slightly at the sudden greeting and looks over to find Pidge grinning at him.

“Oh.  Yeah,” he responds lamely.  Pidge holds out her hands and Keith returns the tablet.  They make their way to a table close to the food and sit, waiting for the staff to ring the literal dinner bell which will signify they can come and take food. 

It doesn’t take long for other riders to trickle in and scatter across the tables.  Pidge opens the tablet, peers at the screen, then pulls a face right as someone approaches their table.  Keith looks up at the newcomer, who is tall and broad and familiar.  Then his brain supplies a name:  Hunk.  The Balmeran rider.  He clears his throat and Keith shoots a somewhat helpless look at Pidge because he doesn’t know if he has the authority to invite this relative stranger to their table.  Then Pidge spots him and yelps, launching herself out of her seat to throw her arms around his neck.

“Big Man!” she squeals delightedly, and Hunk laughs as he hugs her back.

“Been a while, Pidgeon!” 

Keith decides Hunk has a nice voice.  Hunk situates himself in the empty seat between Pidge and Keith.  Pidge has already started talking a mile a minute, much to Keith’s private amusement.  She’s cute when she’s excited.  Hunk seems to be having the same thought, as he’s grinning with pointedly raised eyebrows, waiting for Pidge to take a breath.

“You gonna introduce me to your new buddy?” he asks when she breaks to gasp in air.

“Oh!  Oh, oh, right!  Hunk, this is Keith!  He’s an OTR newbie from Earth.  Keith, this is Hunk, he’s the Balmeran rider and also my best friend since we were seven.” Pidge gives Hunk another fond smile.

“How did you two meet?” Keith asks, partly out of politeness and partly out of genuine curiosity.  How could two human friends who’ve known each other for almost 20 years both end up at the VET as official riders for two different alien civilizations?

“We knew each other in elementary school, when Pidge’s family moved to Hawaii and we were in the same first-grade class,” Hunk explains.  “I think we bonded over trying to build the tallest Tinker Toys structure we could.”

“And then we both went to the Garrison and got into the aeronautics program there.  I’m an astrophysicist by training and Hunk’s an engineer,” Pidge supplies.

Keith looks at them skeptically.  “And you got into horses on alien planets how?”

“My parents kept a couple horses and Pidge was one of those horse girls—”

“—still am,” she confirms.

“—and when we were shipped off on our first assignments, to Olkarion and Balmera X-95-Vox, and ended up staying there because we liked them!  It was just a nice surprise that they both had horses.  The equestrian program is still super new in the Balmeran Federation, but Balmerans are weirdly naturally good with horses and they were really happy to let me help build their program while I was also helping to undo the damage of old colonial Galran mining operations.”  Hunk’s face darkens ever so slightly at the last statement, but it passes quickly and Keith can tell it’s probably not something to bring up in light conversation.

“I went on to grad school because nobody can beat the Olkari when it comes to technological innovation—the Alteans are good, but they’re too caught up in aesthetics to really push the boundaries of what’s possible—”

“Pidge,” Hunk says gently, cutting off her tangent.  She gives a bashful grin and rubs the back of her neck.

“I get carried away talking about tech, sorry.”  Personally, Keith doesn’t think she has to apologize for her enthusiasm, but if it makes her feel better, it’s her prerogative.  “Anyways, I went there to work with eminent researchers on white holes, but then I got sucked into the bio-engineering program who’d just teamed up with the global equestrian program.  This is the first time the two halves of the planet have really worked together to combine nature and tech and it’s amazing.  Of course, I can’t tell you too much, but it’s really cool and definitely legal.  I’ll tell you that, completely sincere.”

“Wow,” Keith says, at a loss.  He can’t contribute, having dropped out of high school his junior year.  A wave of his own inadequacy crashes over him and he fights to not blush self-consciously.  Thankfully, he’s saved by the bell.

There’s a sudden mass-migration towards the food of hungry riders all trying to not look too desperately hungry but also trying to beat everyone else to the food.  Hunk, Pidge, and Keith are able to beat most of them there by virtue of the proximity of their table to the buffet.  After they load their plates and return to their table there’s a good ten minute stretch of time where they’re all too busy eating to talk.

Then, once the frantic pace of wolfing down food has relaxed, they sit back and start talking again.  Pidge opens her tablet to show Hunk something and that funny look flits across her face again when she looks at the screen.  Hunk catches it and mumbles around a bite of pulled pork,

“‘Sup?”

Pidge taps the screen a couple times, not answering, before she bursts out laughing and turns the tablet towards Hunk and Keith.  The Odds ranking is still displayed there and Keith realizes in a flash he forgot to close his tabs.  A second realization hits him like lightning when he sees his own name ranked tenth. 

“Rookie mistake checking the odds, man,” Hunk says after swallowing.  “Just freaks you out.”

“But look!”  Pidge points at Keith’s name.  “Fucking Lance.”  She still seems to think this whole thing is very amusing, so it comes out more like a fond ‘oh that dumb bastard, I love him’ and less like a ‘that dumb bastard just made my life much more difficult than it needed to be.’  Keith stuffs his face with coleslaw very quickly so that he has plausible deniability answering any questions.

Hunk peers closer at the tablet, then sits back suddenly.  “You’re higher than the Galra rider!”

“Shh!” Keith sprays Hunk with coleslaw, which the man gamely ignores, as Keith shoots a frantic look over his shoulder.  Nobody around them seems to care.

“Don’t worry about it, Keith, none of the vets here actually care about the odds.  We know it’s all based on media coverage and personality.  It doesn’t reflect you or your horse, really,” Hunk says soothingly, putting a hand on Keith’s shoulder.  The touch does succeed in getting Keith to relax minutely.  Though Hunk’s words make sense, Keith still can’t shake the paranoia that his strategy has been maliciously disrupted.  He wanted to fly under the radar, have everyone underestimate him, then he could reveal Red’s speed in one last burst and win the VET and a comfy future.

“You’re not used to this big a stage, huh?” Hunk asks kindly, as if reading Keith’s thoughts.  Keith looks at him for a second, trying to assess his intentions, but everything about Hunk exudes calm sincerity, so Keith nods.

“I didn’t really expect to win my qualifiers.  I feel like I’m not really supposed to be here,” _‘and not in the least part because I’m poor and homeless and have none of the supports and formal training every single other rider here has,’_ but Keith doesn’t say that last part.  He’s hoping it’s not too obvious that he feels like a backwater country hick, especially in the presence of these highly educated scientists-cum-top-interplanetary-riders.

“Don’t worry about it.  The pressure’s off once the race actually starts, because all this,” Hunk waves a hand around the dining room, “falls away.  There’s no reporters out there.  You can’t see the stream or watch the news.  And even as small as this planet is, there’s only 500 of us and we disperse pretty quickly.  It’ll just be you and your horse for a straight month and let me tell you, there will be plenty of other things to worry about.  So don’t sweat the odds.  You belong here just as much as me, or Pidge, or even Lance—hell, maybe even more, because you had to go through two mini-VETs to get here.”

Hunk pulls Keith in for a side hug, nearly dragging him off his chair.  Despite stiffening at the initial contact, Keith allows him to relax into Hunk’s very warm side.  The touch is more comforting than he expected, making him wonder just how touch-starved he’s been for so many years to find the awkward side hug of a stranger comforting.  Or if that’s just Hunk’s natural charm.  Maybe both.

Keith’s gaze flickers up to find Pidge looking at them with a very soft smile on her face.  He returns it tentatively.  Then Hunk releases him and they all clean their plates and go back up for the dessert that’s just been set out.

Returning to the table once again, but this time with plates of brownies and cookies, Pidge starts the conversation.  “So now you know how we got into alien horse riding, how did you get here?  What’s your story, Keith?”

Keith flounders for a second.  “I—uh—I’ve been riding all my life, really, but I started endurance racing after I saw the VET for the first time.  It just seemed so… freeing.” 

“You just started endurance racing four years ago, with no trainer, and now you’re at the VET?” Pidge summarizes, whistling long and low through her teeth.  Well, when she puts it like that, Keith almost has more faith in his own skills.

“It is impressive, isn’t it?  Though I’d wager you’d be a real competitor with a trainer and some experience under your belt,” comes a sinuous voice from Keith’s right and he looks over only to see Lotor surrounded by some brightly-colored alien riders Keith vaguely recalls are also OTR.  He frowns at them.

“Can I help you?”  Keith knows he’s being prickly, but he knows enough about Lotor now to feel justified in his prickliness.  Lotor feigns hurt.

“I was merely on my way to get dessert and happened to overhear your conversation.  You were speaking at quite a volume for my sensitive hearing, little Olkari,” he says to Pidge and she flushes angrily at the nickname.

“Go get your dessert, Prince Lotor,” Hunk says firmly, meeting his eyes with an even gaze.  It’s clearly a dismissal, but not one that Lotor can protest. 

As he passes directly behind Keith, he says, “isn’t it nice to think you have friends?” in a low enough voice Hunk doesn’t catch it.  A chill runs down Keith’s spine and he forces himself to not react, but the words are like poison and they conjure up the distrust Keith had vowed to wear like armor just that morning.  True, Hunk and Pidge are each other’s long-time friends and are being very kind towards Keith, but he’s really just a stranger to them that they’ve taken pity on.  They’re going to want something from him sooner or later.  Everyone does.  Keith just hopes it’s something he can deliver on without sacrificing the race, his horse, or his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes I know Lotor is "out of character." In my defense, I started writing this in December 2017, well before Lotor's character was fleshed out in canon. It was just "summon Prince Lotor" and I needed an antagonist and, well, here we are. I actually love the guy, I think he's a great character, but in this fic, it's a canon-divergent AU and he's gonna be the villain bc that's what I need of him


	3. Good Things Come In Twos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two days left, two news friends

**TWO DAYS UNTIL THE VET**

Keith gets up early as usual and makes his way down to the quiet barn without seeing another person.  The first buttery rays of sunlight are just beginning to kiss the treetops and metal roof of the barn, promising a warm and bright day.  It isn’t until Keith is grooming Red in the aisle that he sees a group of Puigian riders pulling their horses out of their stalls further down.  They wave at Keith and he returns the gesture.  After dinner last night, Keith had found out that most of the riders this year were actually Puigian, Altean, Galra, or hybrids.  There were only a handful of full-blooded humans:  just 23, including Keith, Lance, Hunk, Pidge, and the Champion.  Pidge attributed it to Earth’s relatively isolationist interplanetary policies and to the prohibitively expensive cost of getting off the planet.  Keith had winced in empathy at that last point; he’d spent his entire purse from the Transcontinental Endurance Challenge, his first qualifying race, to get to Mars and the entire purse from the Mars race just to travel to the VET.  It had left him with great accomplishments, but very literally penniless.  Other planets just didn’t have that issue due to their history as Galran colonies—the Galra built interplanetary infrastructure wherever they went.

 

Keith takes Red on a different trail this morning.  It’s every bit as idyllic as yesterday, but Red is much calmer.  The workout the previous day was good for burning off her excess energy.  Despite Lance’s opinion on having a stir-crazy horse, Keith knows Red wouldn’t listen to him at all if she was too well-rested.  She needs to be a little tired to really work with him, else she thinks too much of herself and tries to take control.  So they just trot along the trail until it bends and leads into a ravine.  Unfounded paranoia rears its head and Keith halts his horse.  He looks around, back up the trail they’d just came down.

“There aren’t going to be trails in the Trials, are there?” he wonders aloud as he pulls Red around and pushes her off the trail, into the underbrush.  She goes without complaint, stepping carefully through the initial wall of leaves and branches before proceeding more confidently.  Keith lies nearly flat against Red’s neck, avoiding every branch that would otherwise hit him in the face, straining to look up and ahead and guide Red.  He knows she’ll do her job getting through the forest, but he still has to give her some input or she’ll wander aimlessly in any direction.  The branches thin out and Keith is able to sit up again, only having to dip his head to duck the occasional branch now.  The underbrush falls away for the most part, and Keith nudges Red back into a trot.

The layers of leaf litter crunch merrily under Red’s hooves, each step creating a rhythmic shushing, crashing noise as the mare kicks up leaves and twigs and startles songbirds into flight.  It’s childishly delightful.  Red pulls at the reins slightly, almost like she’s asking permission to do more, but Keith holds her.  The gallop yesterday had been plenty, and running through the woods off the trail like a madman would be a great way to get one of them (most likely Keith) hurt just two days before the competition. 

Every so often, Keith veers back towards the trail and makes visual contact with it, just to make sure he’s not actually lost out in the woods.  He decides to cross over it and explore the other side of the woods, but it proves to be thicker with underbrush, so he quickly returns to the side he started on.  Red trots on and on, perfectly content to stay at this pace for hours.  Her endurance is a point of pride for Keith.  Sometimes, he jokingly suspects she’s a machine with a very convincing paint job.

He switches from sitting the trot to posting for a bit, just for a change of pace and to alleviate the pressure on his tailbone.  The even cadence of it is relaxing.  Together, Keith and Red glide into a perfect, thoughtless dance together, slipping into the zone that won them this spot in the VET. 

 

Hours pass.

 

The next time Keith veers back to the trail, he realizes the sun is almost directly overhead now and a bright flash of alarm at the lost time hits him.  He reaches down to touch Red’s neck and finds her fur sweat-damp, feels her breaths are fast and deep.  Sighing, he mops his own forehead and puts Red back on the trail towards the barn.  They just walk, coming down from their high, and Keith begins to hum.  Red gives him an ear, and Keith gives her a pat on the haunches, then leans back and rests a hand on her rump while she walks so that he can tip his head back and watch the sun-drenched foliage above them shift in the breeze.  The wind makes the trees whisper, and somewhere far off, Keith thinks he hears a cicada cry.

Out here, like this, it’s hard to believe one of the biggest diplomatic events in the galaxy is taking place in two days.  But, like Hunk said last night, all the hype and bustle and business falls away when Keith is on the back of his horse.  He relishes the idea of just spending time with her for a month.  Sure, parts of it will be difficult or lonely, but it’ll be worth it in the end when Keith crosses the finish line first—either in the race, or his category—and secures enough money to live like a real person instead of just one of thousands of homeless horsemen who roam the Southwest.  Hell, he’ll even be able to afford to see a doctor so he can finally get the testosterone his system is lacking.

 

The barn is horribly busy when Keith returns.  He can’t understand why anyone would be starting their ride now, when the heat of the day is rising and hundreds of their competitors will be jamming up the same gallops and trails they want to use.  Even so, Keith manages to find an empty outdoor washstall to untack Red and bathe her in.  He just hoses her down, rubbing at her darkest sweat spots with his fingers to make sure she’s clean.

“Are you Keith Kogane?” a woman’s voice asks from the other side of Red.  Keith looks over his mare’s shoulders to find a petite blonde woman holding a microphone, shadowed by a cameraman.  Jules.  The VET reporter he’d seen yesterday.  He replies hesitantly, wary now of media attention.

“Who’s asking?”

Jules giggles.  “Jules Domahay, reporter for the official live streaming news coverage of the Voltron Endurance Trials.  I’d like to interview you, Mr. Kogane, after some interesting comments the Earth rider gave about you yesterday.  He said—”

“I saw the stream,” Keith cuts her off.  He knows it’s rude, but he doesn’t like the laserlike attention Jules is focusing on him.  It makes him feel like he’s being picked apart, so he stays hidden behind Red’s wet body.  “I’m busy right now.”

“It would only take two minutes tops.  I just want to know more about your history and your horse, and I’m sure a lot of our viewers would be interested as well.  You’re a bit of a dark horse, Mr. Kogane, coming out of nowhere and dazzling the race favorite like you did.”

Keith wishes she’d stop calling him Mr. Kogane.  He doesn’t respond, just continues to dig his knuckles into Red’s fur.  Jules seems undaunted by Keith’s reticence.

“Lance McClain said your horse here is ‘crazy fast;’ care to comment?” Jules asks as she reaches out to pat Red’s muzzle.

“She bites,” Keith warns her, and Jules withdraws her hand quickly.  “And no, I don’t care to comment.”

“How did you manage to qualify for the VET with no trainer and barely four years of experience under your belt?  What was your inspiration to begin endurance racing?  What did you do before that?”  Jules peppers Keith with question after question, apparently hoping one of them will stir something in him.  He remains steadfastly silent, working his way meticulously down Red’s side and basically giving her a massage at this point purely so that the camera can’t get a clear shot of him.  He hopes Jules will tire and leave.

“Steven, stop rolling a second,” Jules says in a flat voice.  Keith watches warily as the cameraman lowers the camera and Jules hands him the mic.  She walks around to Red’s side so that she can talk to Keith over the mare’s back.  “Look, I don’t want to be obnoxious, but we’d really like an interview with you.  Most people are amazed and inspired by the fact you’re even in this race.  But some people are upset by it.  They’re saying you cheated to get here.  I can’t say who, but there’s someone pushing to have you disqualified.  I’m giving you a chance to clear the air.  Just five minutes with me and you can set your record straight.”

Keith looks Jules dead in the eyes.  He doesn’t have to ask her to know it’s Lotor pushing for his disqualification.  Red’s speed must have scared him.  When Jules puts it that way, though, it makes sense.  She doesn’t seem like the type to try to twist words for a sensational story.  Keith sighs, leaning forward to rest his elbows on Red’s spine.

“Fine.  I’m staying right here, though.  Five minutes.  I have things to do after this.”

Jules gives him an even smile.  “Thank you.  I’ll grab a clip-on mic for you.”

Once Keith is appropriately miked and Steven’s found a good angle to shoot from, Jules positions herself by Red’s shoulder and Keith keeps a hand on the mare’s halter to prevent any mid-interview bites.  Before the camera begins rolling again, Jules runs over the questions with Keith and waits until he nods in approval before flashing a thumbs-up at Steven. 

“So we are here at the training barn two days before the Trials begin with the underdogs of the race, OTR Keith Kogane and his mare Red,” Jules says by means of introduction.  “Keith, tell us, what got you started in endurance racing?”

“I started doing endurance races after I saw the last VET—” Keith clears his throat nervously, already feeling the pressure of the viewers despite the wash area being empty apart from the four of them.  “But I’ve been doing a lot of distance riding.  Ever since I started riding, y’know.  It’s part of—” Keith stops himself before he can say ‘cowboy’ and completely disgrace himself— “part of the area I come from.  Red’s used to it to.  We’ve been doing it together—riding long distances I mean—for longer than we’ve been really training for the VET.”

Jules gives him an encouraging smile.  “You were inspired by the last VET?  That’s pretty incredible, that you managed to go from fan to favorite competitor in just four years.  What is it about endurance riding that you like so much?”

Keith is grateful Jules took to heart his boundaries against talking about his past and upbringing.  This is a safe subject, so Keith’s answer is more confident.  “It’s relaxing.  Something about it just clicks, when we get into the right gear and just go for hours.  I kind of zone out, autopilot a little bit, and I think sometimes Red falls asleep.”

Jules laughs.  “Well, hopefully the Trials won’t be that boring for you two.  What were your qualifying races like?”

“The first one we did was the Transcontinental Endurance Challenge—” Keith starts, but Jules cuts in quickly.

“For those of you who don’t know, that’s one of few ultra-marathon-type endurance races that takes place on planet Earth and it goes from the east coast of the United States of America to the west coast and comprises 2,680 miles of wildly varied terrain, which makes it more than twice as long as the VET and far more difficult and dangerous.”

Keith shoots Jules a look, surprised by the information, but continues.  “Yeah, the TEC.  That was brutal.  It took us about four months to finish, but it wasn’t that bad because we all followed one trail that had been marked out ahead of time, and we took mandatory rest days and had shelter when there were storms.  But it would still get lonely sometimes.  The desert was the hardest part, because no matter how fast you’re moving forwards, everything is so big and flat and empty that it feels like you’re not going anywhere.”

Jules nods.  “And how about Mars?”

“Mars… oh yeah, the Martian Endurance Race.  That was sort of harder than the TEC, actually.  It was only 500 miles, but we did it in two weeks so we were really pushing ourselves the whole time.  No rest days.  I was so tired at the end I thought I was hallucinating when they told me I’d qualified for Voltron.  Red had a hard time adjusting to being off-planet, but she got over it, and here doesn’t bug her—I don’t think she knows we’re not on Earth.”  Keith actually cracks a bit of a grin, patting his mare’s withers as an apology for the joke at her expense.  She doesn’t seem to mind, but makes a pass at nipping Keith’s arm anyways.

“That’s really impressive, Keith,” Jules says earnestly, glancing back to the camera.  “What are your motivations for competing against an array of the best riders in the galaxy?”

“I, uh… I have some good motivations.  I really like a challenge, too.  Whatever happens, it’ll be good for us.”  Keith refrains from wincing at his clumsy answer.  He has a new appreciation for Thace’s slick dodging of uncomfortable questions now.

“And how has it been, handling the pressures of the competition without a support team?”

Keith freezes in the face of that question, fisting his free hand in Red’s mane.  Then he realizes Red is his support team.  A surge of confidence wells in him.  “I have a support team; it’s Red.  She’s all I need.  She’s all I’ve ever needed, and she’s always been there for me.  I can count on her for anything.”  Out of all the answers Keith’s given so far, that’s the only one he feels truly certain in.  It’s the only one that’s completely true—no half-truths and omissions for the sake of his dignity.  Red is his everything, and he’s not afraid to say it.

Jules nods.  “Well, thank you for your time Keith.  Best of luck in the Trials.”  Keith returns the nod, and the camera stops rolling.  Jules turns to him, this time reaching out to pat Red’s neck.  “Really, thank you for that.  That should help keep some of the curiosity at bay, too.  You don’t strike me as the type who likes the limelight.”

“No, that would be Lance,” Keith answers dryly.  Jules chuckles.  They pack up and move on, letting Keith finish with Red.  He turns her out, holding her face for a moment to press his cheek against her forehead.  It’s not often Red allows Keith to show that sort of affection—she’s too impatient, normally—but when she does stand still and lean into the brief cuddle, it means the world to Keith.  Then he releases her face and she goes immediately to devour the fresh bale of hay in the corner of the paddock.

 

When Keith returns to the riders’ building, there’s a notice on the electronic bulletin board in the lobby.  Before dinner tonight there’s going to be a virtual course walk with an overview of the map of the planet—the only time the riders will get to see a complete map.  They’re expected to have good enough navigational skills to manage without a map.  There is a network of carefully placed and maintained satellites in orbit around the VET planet that mimic Earth’s constellations.  It privileges Earth-born riders, being able to navigate by their native constellations.  Aliens and humans born off-planet have to study not only biomes, horses, Terran biology, but also Earth’s constellation and the tricky art of stellar navigation.

The briefing is in the same room as the previous briefing.  This time Keith isn’t late, but he still takes a seat near the back.  The spotlight sits uncomfortably on him, so he takes care to avoid it.  Keith checks the clock on the wall and sees he’s almost an hour early.  That doesn’t bother him.  He lets his eyes drift close, at first just meditating and focusing inward on the feeling of his body, trying to let the stress of the competition and his worries about the odds drop away.  Though he’d love to get back on Red and ride away from it all, he’s just got to wait another day before that’ll be his reality.  So instead he feels everything there is to feel about his body, starting with his head and moving downwards.  He gets to his elbows before a hand lands on his shoulder and Hunk’s voice jolts him into awareness.

“Keith, my man!” he says jovially, and Keith feels profoundly disoriented.  He glances at the clock on the wall like a lifeline and a little more than an hour has passed.  _I fell asleep and didn’t even realize it,_ Keith thinks.  He gathers his wits and nods at Hunk, mouth sleep-gummy in the way that it is only after unplanned naps.  Hunk takes that as an invitation to sit, and Pidge appears from behind him, taking Keith’s other side. 

“This’ll be a piece of cake, won’t it?” Hunk asks, and Keith nods again.  He imagines it’ll be easier for him than most.  The endurance races always have been, because they’re basically the same as living homeless off your horse’s back, except with the luxuries of stable food and vet care and the added pressure of the ticking clock.  There were too many nights when Keith navigated by the north star until the sun came up, just trying to make it to the next town in time for the local newspapers to need a temporary courier to take the papers out to the far-flung ranches.

Lotor enters with his brightly-colored entourage.  They don’t look over at Keith—maybe they didn’t notice him; it would be a small mercy—and seat themselves near the front.  The Champion appears next, accompanied by a reduced security presence of only three massive purple-furred Galra.  They sit far away from Lotor, only a row away from Keith, Pidge, and Hunk.  The rest of the seats fill up quickly.  The riders begin to chatter, Pidge and Hunk leaning around Keith to chat.  They’ve recognized he’s still out of it from his nap.  It’s odd, but Keith appreciates the exclusion.  It’s considerate.

Instead, Keith leans his elbows on his knees, resting his mouth on his hands, and covertly studies the Champion as the noise level in the briefing room steadily rises.  The Champion sits very upright, at attention, like his own security guards whom Keith assumes are military or ex-military.  His eyes are focused on the front of the room.  Unlike his security guards, whose ears swivel constantly, taking in the deafening chatter of the room, the Champion gives no indication he’s aware of his surroundings.  Keith shifts in his seat, causing it to creak, and one Galra ear flicks around towards him for a moment.  He almost chuckles.  When they’re not busy being terrifying political bullies, colonists, and borderline-fascists, the Galra are kind of like huge cats.

Just as Keith turns his introspection inwards to ruminate on the Galra more, the Champion turns his head ever so slightly and meets Keith’s eye.  Keith freezes.  The Champion’s expression is completely blank, perfectly schooled.  His eyes don’t hold any sort of emotion.  Nothing that would indicate he’s a victory-driven champion, a fierce competitor, a slave—nothing.  A chill runs down Keith’s back.  He’s never seen a gaze that empty.  Then one of the guards notices the Champion looking and reaches a hand out towards him.  In an instant, anger and fear flash through the man’s eyes but he turns to face the front without any conflict.

Keith settles back in his chair.  Pidge and Hunk lean forwards to talk around him still.  So the Champion _does_ feel things, he’s just very good at hiding them.  Unless it comes to the Galra.  Understandable he’d be less able to hide his fear and anger at them.  Nobody knows what they do to him when he’s not in the public eye, and the guards are very good at keeping him hidden unless an appearance is absolutely necessary.  They could be beating him.  Keith chills at the thought.

The announcer calls everyone’s attention to the front of the room and the lights dim as a holographic image of the VET planet blinks into existence.  The start point is highlighted in green, the finish point highlighted in red and the globe revolves slowly to show both.  As the announcer speaks, dozens of wandering golden threads snake out from the start point, forming a vein-like mesh around the globe as they connect to the end point.

“These are defined trails that go directly from the start to the finish.  They will be your paths of least resistance, though their safety cannot be guaranteed.  Some pass through more difficult areas or biomes and they will not be labeled.  Most of them are more than 1,000 miles due to their wandering nature.  The most direct paths will not follow the trails, though they will be slower due to obstructions and the danger of becoming lost.”  The Unilu announcer waves two arms and four paths begin to glow more brightly.  They’re the more direct, wavering only slightly as they connect the start and finish points.  The riders lean forward.

“The North, South, East, and West trails are the straightest routes.  Each has its own significant obstacle.  After all, we couldn’t make this too easy for you,” the announcer chuckles.  “The North Trail goes through the polar arctic biome.  The South Trail crosses a mountain range.  The East Trail encounters an ocean, which can be crossed through island hopping, and the West Trail faces miles of canyons and gorges.  It is up to you to decide whether or not you want to take these trails.  Otherwise, it is your responsibility to navigate.”

Keith sits back and sucks on his teeth.  He has no way of knowing if it’ll be rookies or vets on those main trails.  It could be either.  Riders and horses who specialize in any of those obstacles would definitely take those trails:  for them, their competence could make the added time of crossing the mountains or swimming the ocean worth it.  He could try the West Trail, with its canyons and gorges.  He and Red are no stranger to those.  But then again, the TEC had put them through almost every one of those obstacles except for the ocean.  He knows there will be precious few riders taking the East Trail.  There’s also liable to be more riders on the main trails, which is something Keith wants to avoid altogether.

The Unilu goes on a bit longer about the different trails, then invites people to group up by rows to cluster around smaller projections of the globe.  Keith finds himself being ushered by Hunk over to one projection, along with the Champion.  The other riders chatter excitedly, pointing out different trails and muttering to themselves and to each other.  All the Puigians, regardless of affiliation or sponsorship, seem to be working together.  It’s certainly a strategy.  Not one Keith or any of the other species of riders would adopt, but this is apparently the first year the Puigians have had such a presence, so time will tell.

“West Trail?” Pidge mutters, one arm crossed against her chest, the other hand held against her mouth as she studies the map.  Hunk has both his arms crossed over his chest, his face serious in concentration.

“The main trails are going to be crazy at the beginning because of their easy entry.”  He shakes his head.  Extending one arm, he points over a shorter rider’s head and gestures at the different biomes, which are marked only by dotted lines.  “Silas can deal with sticky terrain in the marshland.  I’ll enter back into the South Trail after the mountains.”

Pidge hums in assent.  Keith wonders if he should be sharing his strategy with them, too, but then remembers his vow and Lotor’s words.  It stings a little to not be able to trust them, but he knows it’s for the best.

If he takes the most direct route possible, he can make up the time lost by not having an easy cleared trail ahead of him.  Red is good at trailblazing, and Keith is good at navigating.  Out of all the biomes available—savannah, tundra, taiga, marshland, mountains, ocean, forest, and desert—two are pre-chosen by the location of the start and end points.  Everyone will have to ride through considerable savannah and desert, but the third biome they have to go through is up to them.  Keith knows more riders are likely to choose the tundra, taiga, and marshland despite their cold and wet because of good visibility and lack of obstacles.  The ocean caters to some very specific breeds of horse adept at swimming, of which Red is not one.  The Rockies during the TEC were hell.  Neither Keith nor Red were breathing well at all because of the thinness of the air and the feeling of suffocation isn’t one Keith’s eager to repeat.

That leaves the forest.  Forests generally scare most humans and, Keith isn’t going to lie, he’s “most humans” in this case.  He’d much rather be out in the desert.  But Red doesn’t seem to mind the trees, and if there’ll be fewer people in the woods, then that’s what Keith’ll do.  And if Keith’s off the trails entirely?  He’ll be untouchable.

Keith steals a glance over at Lotor’s group.  If Lotor can’t find him, then that’s all the better.  He looks away quickly before Lotor can sense his gaze and tunes back into Pidge and Hunk’s conversation.

“Dinner?” Hunk asks, and Pidge nods.  She notices Keith then, and raises an eyebrow.  He nods, realizing it’s an invitation.

“Keith’s place.”

“Wh—mine?” Keith sputters, caught off guard.  Pidge laughs.  Hunk gives him a grin.

“Let’s go steal food from the kitchens.”  Hunk rubs his hands together, then sidles out of the room with a level of stealth someone his size shouldn’t rightfully possess.  Nobody even notices the mountain of a man leave.  Pidge slips out behind him and then Keith weaves his way past the groups, acting as nonchalant as possible.  As he closes the door behind him, he catches a flash of the Champion’s gaze.

 

It was deceptively easy wheedling an early dinner on paper plates out of the Galra cook.  He seemed sympathetic to their need for a quiet dinner and packed them Galra-sized portions of everything.

“I can’t finish all this,” Pidge comments, nearly straining around the armload of food the size of her torso.

“I’ll finish what you can’t,” Keith and Hunk say at the same time, surprising each other.  Pidge laughs.

“You can fight over it, then.  Keith, where is your horse?”  Pidge stops in the center aisle of the main barn, looking up and down the rows of stalled horses.

“She’s outdoors.”  Keith takes the lead and brings the other two to Red’s paddock.  It’s dark outside now, but floodlights from the barn illuminate the area pretty well.  Keith whistles as he approaches, and Red appears with a whicker from inside the run-in shed.  She trots over and sticks her head over the gate, sniffing at the food in his arms.  He pushes Red away before she can steal any of his food and opens the gate for Pidge and Hunk.  The three of them make their way over to the run-in shed and settle on the ground.  Red saunters up behind Hunk and Keith watches the mare carefully.

Hunk sits perfectly still, unbothered by the mare’s roving nose across his head and shoulders.  He chuckles as she lips at his hair and headband.

“Red,” Keith says in the lowest warning voice he can.  Red flicks an ear at him, but lifts her nose and moves on to Pidge.

“Hi there,” Pidge says, raising a hand to the curious mare.

“Be careful,” Keith cautions.  “She bites.  She’s not like yours.”  Pidge nods, but continues greeting Red.  The mare sniffs Pidge’s proffered hand, then dips her nose lower into Pidge’s lap to investigate the spread of food there.  Then, like a strike of lightning, Red lunges and steals a huge slab of bread and bolts to the far end of the paddock, tail and head held high.

“Damn food thief!” Keith hollers at her, jumping to his feet and preparing to wrestle the sourdough away from his horse, but Pidge’s hand on his calf stops him.

“It’s fine,” she laughs, looking over at where Red has dropped the bread on the ground and is nibbling at it.  “I wasn’t going to finish it anyways.  She can have it.”

Keith watches with disbelief—but not surprise—as Red decides the bread isn’t interesting anymore and begins sauntering back over to the run in.  He shakes his head.  As Red draws close again, Hunk twists around and raises a hand, pressing it against the mare’s chest.  She stops, almost surprised that someone could halt her with a single hand.

“Be—” Keith starts again, but Hunk nods.

“Careful.  I got it.”

“She doesn’t like men,” Keith adds.  Hunk keeps his eyes focused on Red, who still just seems confused about Hunk touching her.  Then she backs away from his hand and wanders off to graze.  Keith makes a bemused noise and Hunk turns back around with a gentle smile.

“Horses that don’t like men, don’t like men that act like men.  If you act like a human, a person… if you act like yourself, then they generally don’t take issue.  I try not to bring my ego into handling them,” Hunk explains.  Keith nods and, unsure of how to respond, turns his attention to his dinner.  They eat in silence for a few moments before Hunk speaks again.  “Where’d you get her?”

It’s a friendly enough question, innocuous from the outside, but Keith tenses.  He holds up a finger and continues chewing to buy himself some time to figure out a good enough answer.  “Bought her off of someone in Nevada.”  A flimsy lie that Keith fears Hunk will see through.  Pidge eyes him, but says nothing.

“Do you know what she is?”  Hunk is turned around again to look at the mare.

“Mustang,” Keith says.  It’s most likely true, and mustangs are as variable as the colors of the rainbow, depending on which area of the range they were rounded up from. 

Hunk grunts in agreement, still assessing Red.  “She’s got great conformation.  I see the Spanish blood in her.”

Keith looks at his mare with renewed eyes, trying to see what Hunk sees.  Looking at the slope of her shoulder and the curve of her neck, she does look a little Spanish.  “Probably has some Arabian in her too.  Remember when they released those Arabian stallions to try to improve the mustang blood?” Keith comments, and this time Pidge nods.

“I’ve only ever seen the warmblood mustangs, but they come from further east.  I think the more Spanish mustangs come from farther north, like the Dakotas area.  Do you think she has any Appaloosa in her?” Pidge chimes in.  Keith shrugs and stuffs a small chunk of bread into his mouth. 

“You know, people go on and on about breeds and how they’re so great because they’ve been refined, but I think mustang-like horses, the kinda feral ones, are probably the best.  Nature does what nature needs to do to make a good horse.  And you remember all those stories about the Pony Express and those endurance champions in the olden days?  All broken mustangs that were caught wild,” Hunk says, voice tinged with wistful nostalgia.  “No offense to you and Duva, of course,” he adds quickly, turning to Pidge.  Keith quirks an eyebrow at her.  That’s too many times now Duva Tolle’s breeding has been brought up as a touchy subject; Keith _has_ to know what the deal is.

“None taken.  Though I _will_ say romanticizing a messy trial-and-error process of genetic potluck almost makes it sound like it’s a more intelligent system than careful breeding and genetic selection for the best traits and immunity against disorders and illnesses,” Pidge says pointedly, though not meanly.  Suddenly Pidge’s bio-engineering background makes sense.  Duva Tolle must be some sort of ultra-bred genetics project, which is why Pidge would make the somewhat odd comment that the mare is entirely equine.

The three return to their food, chatting mostly about different horse breeds, and Red rolls in the background.  The night begins to take on a bit of a chill by the time they all finish dinner.  As they’re leaving the paddock, Keith pauses to scratch Red’s withers.  She butts her head against him, rubbing her face up and down his arm so enthusiastically she almost knocks him over, and Keith laughs as he shoves the horse away.  “Goodnight, Red,” he mutters with a smile.

 

Going back through the barn, they stop by Silas’s stall.  The stallion is enormous, easily the same size as the Galras’ monstrous blue roan.  He’s a very familiar buckskin color though, with a roached mane that makes him look like an overgrown Fjord pony.  He lips at Hunk’s hands, looking for treats, when his rider approaches. 

“He’s huge,” Keith says in awe.  Hunk grins at him.

“Did you expect a guy like me to ride anything smaller?” he laughs.  “He’s got Komar blood, but he’s mostly Balmeran mining horse, which is a lot like the mustang because it’s just kind of a loose category of horse influenced by a long history of colonization.  Regardless of blood, he’s a good boy.”

Hunk gives Silas a hearty clap on the neck, slipping him a treat before they go.  Dinner is still in full swing when they return to the riders’ quarters, but the three part ways and return to their rooms.  Tomorrow is the last day before Voltron, and they’re all eager to get as much rest as they can in the little time remaining.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note about Keith being "full-blooded" human: yep, that's real in this fic. Like I said last chapter, canon-divergent AU. There's really not a lot of room in the plot to work in his Galra lineage, and it wouldn't make much sense in this story, so he's going to be just plain human. Trust me, you'll learn more about his backstory in later chapters and it'll make sense.
> 
> Also, feel free to drop me a line! Do you ride? Love horses? Love Keith? Comments let me know that you like what I'm writing and want to see more!


	4. Last Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The race looms large over Keith's head, only hours away, and Lotor's growing antagonism isn't helping anything.

**DAY BEFORE THE VET**

If yesterday was busy, today is utter chaos.

 

The barn is pandemonium, filled with riders and trainers and owners.  There isn’t a spare spot in the aisle.  The roar of voices in different languages and horses calling and tack jangling and brushes being thrown and stall doors slammed is overwhelming.  One of the entrances to the training trails goes right past Red’s paddock, and the grass is worn down to hoof-beaten dirt when Keith looks at it:  a sure sign the trails are teeming with competitors.  Red is worked up into a frenzy by the time Keith reaches her, and it’s barely 7 am.  The sun has only just woken.

The mare is bolting up and down the fence line, trumpeting angrily at every passing horse.  Lathered sweat foams on her neck and flanks.  Keith grits his teeth and opens the gate.  Red races up to him, stopping short and nearly bowling him over.  Her eyes are crazy-wide, nostrils blown huge as she sucks in anxious breaths.  Keith raises his hands slowly, laying a hand on her poll and a hand on her nose to try to pull her head down and halter her.

“She looks like a wreck!”

Red squeals and throws her head, ripping Keith’s hands off her face, and nearly kicks Keith as she spins to charge the fence.  Keith snarls in the direction of the voice, rage welling up in him as he sees Lotor astride his gleaming black mare exiting the training trail.  Red throws herself bodily against the fence to snap her teeth at Thayserix and Keith is suddenly very, very glad for the double fences as Thayserix throws her head around and snaps, snakelike, back at Red.  Lotor snatches the reins up and cracks his crop against the horse’s neck, wrestling her back into line.

“Takes one to know one!” Keith shouts back.  Lotor’s face is expressionless when he looks at Keith, but Keith can tell he’s not happy about his mare’s little display just then.  Thayserix isn’t any better than Red, and it gives Keith a petty sense of satisfaction.  Red’s extreme reaction to Lotor’s mare gives him even more reason to be wary of him.  Luckily, they pass without further incident.  Keith cautiously approaches Red again, ready to jump back if the mare turns her agitation on him.  When Red gets upset, it turns into a blind rage that Keith can easily get caught up in, and he knows from experience that Red’s teeth hurt.

“Hey, hey, Red,” Keith says in a low, soothing voice, shushing the mare.  She gives him an ear, still focused on the barn where Thayserix disappeared into.  Keith puts a careful hand on her withers, slowly inching it up her neck.  “There we go.  Good girl.  It’s just me.  We’re not gonna do anything crazy.  No, shush.”  His hand reaches her poll.  Then he raises his other hand, puts it lightly on her nose.  “Good, good girl.  There we go.”

He tugs on her head slightly and succeeds in breaking her fixation on Thayserix.  She tucks her nose into Keith’s chest, allowing him to rub her forehead as if seeking reassurance from him, even though Keith knows she’s just analyzing him for treats.  He slips the halter over her head and readies himself for Red’s inevitable head-tossing.  She starts throwing her head around and Keith just waits it out, holding tightly to the end of the shank as the mare tries to take off. 

“Come on,” Keith groans, reeling her in.  Red snorts at him.  He leads her out of the paddock, fist wrapped tightly around her halter as she dances sideways and blows heavy breaths, eyeballing the other horses.  Keith takes her straight away from the barn, onto the trail, and then off the trail into the woods.  Once they’re away from other horses and people, Keith relaxes his grip on Red’s halter and lets out a length of the lead rope.  She drops her head, the tense lines of her back and neck easing.

Keith whistles as they walk through the woods, sometimes trying to imitate the birds and grinning with delight when the birds imitate him.  They wander aimlessly for a while.  Every so often, Keith lays a hand on Red’s shoulder to check in on her, feeling her cool down as the sweat dries in her coat.  The shade from the trees is refreshing, and this far out the foliage completely mutes the din of the barn.  There’s surely riders passing by on the trail, but Keith isn’t aware of them and if Red is, she doesn’t seem to be bothered by them anymore.

Up ahead, the light through the underbrush grows brighter.  Keith moves towards it curiously, then realizes he’s come out on the other side of the gallops.  Red steps out of the foliage beside him and immediately starts grazing at the edge of the gallops.  The sunlight is pleasantly warm; it’s still too early for the light to become burning hot, and Keith allows himself to become transfixed in the simple action of Red eating.  It’s fascinating to watch how nimble her lips are and how picky she is about each mouthful of grass.  The sound of her teeth grinding away lulls Keith into relaxation.

He gazes out over the gallops, relieved nobody else is using the space.  It’s a rare spot of tranquil on a day that’s otherwise wracked by anxiety, and Keith is sorely tempted to sit and take a breather.  He knows better, though, and instead sidles over to Red and leans against her sun-warmed barrel.  She snorts passively at him and continues grazing.  Keith’s mind wanders into the sound of the birds and the breeze and the verdant greens of the scenery, the sweet blue sky.  Sure, it’s not the scrub and mesas of the Southwest Keith calls home, but it’s lovely enough he wouldn’t mind staying in this moment forever.

But of course, the moment Keith finds some sort of peace it can’t last.

Hoofbeats, muffled by the grass but fast approaching, herald the arrival of a rider.  When a slender, gleaming bay crests the hill and Lance calls out, Keith sighs.  Red throws her head into the air, ears fully erect, body almost quivering as Vada draws near.

“Can you stay back?  Red’s already so worked up,” Keith calls to Lance, unable to keep the weary frustration out of his voice.

“What?” Lance shouts, then trots right up to them.

“I said, _stay back._ Red bites and is really worked up,” Keith repeats, this time letting an edge of anger into his voice.  As if on cue, Red pins her ears and Vada takes an automatic step backwards, startling Lance.  At least his horse listens, even if he doesn't.

“Something wrong with her?” Lance asks, pulling his helmet off to run a hand through sweat-damp hair.

_“No,”_ Keith snaps.  “She doesn’t like other horses and people have been harassing her all morning.  I got down to the barn and she was worked up into a lather.  I can’t even ride her, which is why I’m out here, hand-grazing her, where there _was_ nobody else.”

“Jeez, calm down,” Lance says, finally picking up on both Keith and Red’s irritation.  “Sorry to hear that.  You think she’s gonna be okay to ride tomorrow morning?”

“What are you trying to say?” Keith asks dangerously.  He resents the implication that Red can’t handle the competition.  “Of course she’s gonna be okay.”

Lance doesn’t respond.  Vada puts her head down to graze and both men automatically watch her.  Red goes back to grazing, too, but she’s tense, ripping up fast careless mouthfuls of grass while her sharp, dark eye stays fixed on the other mare.  Keith stares at Vada like somehow she’ll defuse the strained silence.

“I, uh…” Lance says finally, haltingly, then stops to put his helmet back on.  “Look, I didn’t mean to insult you or your horse.  I just…” he stops again, and Keith thinks his silence is more incriminating than anything he could’ve said.  He doesn’t think Keith is a worthy competitor.  Just like Lotor.  “Never mind.  Sorry.  Good luck tomorrow.”

With that, Lance pulls Vada’s head up and kicks her away, disappearing back down the hill.  Keith lets an angry breath out his nose, and Red snorts in imitation of him.  So much for a tranquil morning.  He wishes suddenly for a phone or communicator or something that he could use to see if the situation at the barn has cleared up a bit.  It’s no use wishing for something that won’t happen though, so Keith forces himself to be content with just watching Red graze a while longer.  He walks her in slow circles at one point, just for something to do, all the while trying to plan the rest of his day.

The race begins at sun-up tomorrow.  Keith needs to pack his clothes and personal items tonight, which means he needs to bring his saddlebags up from the barn to his room.  Red should get another bath when they return to the barn because of how lathered she was earlier.  And though Keith’s personal philosophy isn’t to pamper a working horse so that they become unable to handle the hardships of the trail and test, it wouldn’t hurt to give Red some oats or other grain tonight.  Keith has to trust that the officials will hand out the race bibs, numbers, communicators, and other paraphernalia today, too, and that it won’t all be so bulky or heavy that he won’t be able to fit into his pack reasonably. 

By the time Keith’s done mentally packing, Red has eaten her fill and calmed down.  Keith takes a good, long look around the gallops to verify there’s nobody else there.  Then he loops the lead rope around Red’s neck, tying the free end to the other side of her halter, and hops up onto her bare back.  He walks her across the gallops, making sure she picks her way slowly down the hill so that Keith doesn’t slide up onto her neck in the absence of a saddle.  Sure, it wouldn’t be as painful as it would be for other male riders, but it’s still not something he’s eager to do.  Once they reach the other side of the gallops, Keith urges Red into a trot and they once again breach the underbrush, making their way back to the barn.  Hopefully, the light jog together with the grazing will be enough to placate Red, and the commotion at the barn will have died down by the time they get back.

 

Keith was wrong.

 

The barn is even worse when Keith and Red show up because _camera crews_ have arrived now.  And it isn’t just Jules and Steven—it’s alien camera and news crews too.  There’s probably seven times as many people at the barn complex as there should be right now.  Though Keith is grateful for Red’s paddock being more removed from the building itself, he wishes it was somehow shielded from view.  He slides off the mare’s back and unties the lead rope, letting her into her paddock while he braves the chaos of the barn to retrieve a bucket of water and a sponge.

As Keith is sponging Red off in the paddock, three different news crews come try to pester him.  One alien reporter goes so far as to try to actually open the gate to the paddock and come in, and Keith rounds on them shouting and flings the bucket of filthy, sweaty water at them.  They flee quickly, with what Keith imagines are shouted profanities.  Then he curses himself, because it means he has to go get another bucket of water.  At least nobody else saw him lose his temper like that.  In the barn, though, Keith has the good fortune to bump into Pidge.  She looks sufficiently harried as well.

“Pidge,” he calls to her and she turns, sawdust shavings in her hair.

“Keith!”

“This is a madhouse,” Keith wants to mumble, but has to shout to be heard.  Pidge nods vigorously.

“Day before is always the worst,” she confirms.

“What time do they hand out the bibs and stuff?” he asks. 

Pidge glances down at her watch.  “Around five.  Everything should move inside soon as the high-profile riders finish here.”

“When is five?” Keith winces at his own question, but he doesn’t have a watch _(can’t afford a watch,_ a snide voice in his head comments).

“Jesus, Keith, what are you?  A 19th century cowboy?  You’ve got five hours.”

Keith nods at Pidge, grateful.  So he’s got five hours to protect Red from further harassment and pack all his things.  He stops by the tack room on his way back to the paddock and wrestles his tack free from the crush of bodies in the small room, liberally throwing elbows to clear a path for himself.  _If someone ends up with a bruised kidney,_ Keith grumbles to himself, _it’s their own fault for being in my way._

So Keith plants himself in Red’s run-in shed, finishes sponging her down, then wipes off his tack for good measure.  He checks over all the straps and buckles to make sure they’re in good order.  Then he detaches the saddle bags and cleans them out of old crumbs and grit.  Making them immaculate won’t help his anxiety or improve his performance in the race, but Keith does it anyways purely for something to do.  He has to shoo away another camera crew in the midst of cleaning the large bag that will hold Red’s supplemental feed.  It still smells like molasses and beets from the Martian race.  Keith inhales the scent with a smile, allowing the memories to wash over him like a bath.

God, Mars had been _so_ brutal.  By day five Keith remembers feeling like death, wanting desperately to give up.  But he’d kept going, pushing both himself and Red to their limits.  The victory had been so sweet, so worth it.  They’d both sucked down gallons of water greedily after crossing the finish line.  Keith, delirious with exhaustion, had stumbled through taking care of Red in a haze.  The poor horse had looked ready to fall to her knees, and Keith had had to yank on her halter and cajole her several times just to prevent that.  She damn near inhaled three buckets of grain, and that’s the only time Keith remembers Red willingly accepting a stall.  She’d laid down and slept for hours afterwards, while Keith had retreated to the recovery tent and passed out on a cot there. 

But it had felt _so good._ The exhaustion was a wholesome sort that meant a job well done.  Keith looks up at Red.

“We’re gonna do that again.” 

Red whickers at him.

 

True to Pidge’s word, the barn empties out in a couple hours and Keith watches the mass migration to the riders’ quarters.  The quiet that falls in the crowd’s absence is ringing, but Red relaxes almost immediately and rolls heartily in the middle of the paddock.  Keith contemplates moving all his things out to Red’s paddock and just staying here overnight.  If he can get packed up and escape the riders’ quarters before sundown, then that’s what he’ll do.

Once Keith’s satisfied Red is alright, he bundles up his saddlebags and makes his way to the riders’ quarters, bracing himself for the storm inside.  The moment the doors open, Keith is hit by a wall of body heat and noise.  He ducks his head and plows forward, hoping he can get to the elevators without anyone getting in his way.  Of course he wouldn’t be so lucky.

“Keith Kogane!”  A hand grabs Keith’s elbow and drags him off-course and the lobby is so horrifically crowded Keith can’t even round on whoever’s grabbed him.  The hand is huge and hot and wraps around Keith’s entire joint, and the owner is strong enough that Keith can’t physically resist as they haul him all the way out of the lobby into one of the ballrooms.  It’s only mildly less crowded in the ballroom, but Keith gets a look at his guide.  He’s a huge Galra who looks furious.  Keith tenses as he catches the Galra’s angry yellow gaze.  The Galra looks down at the saddlebags in Keith’s arms, and leads him over to a table at the side of the room.

“I am Kolivan, one of the head race officiants.  Set your belongings down.”  Kolivan gestures at a chair next to the table.  Keith deposits his saddlebags on the chair and his stomach crawls nauseatingly up into his throat.  He’s in trouble.  Lotor said something to the officiants.  He’s going to get disqualified.  Keith keeps his face as straight as possible.  Whatever’s coming to him, he’ll take it with dignity.

If Kolivan notices Keith’s barely-masked fear, he doesn’t mention it.  Instead, he bends down and rifles through several bins hidden behind the table.  “These are your official colors.  You may choose to use this as a saddlepad, blanket, quarter sheet, whatever you choose as long as it is visible.  I recommend using it as a saddlepad at the start line so you can be identified.” Kolivan thrusts a red-and-white sheet at Keith, and relief crashes down on him like a ton of bricks.  He’s not getting disqualified.  He’s getting his official colors.

_And they match my jacket,_ Keith realizes, failing to bite down on a grin.

“This is your number.  Make sure this is visible in some form at all times.  You may choose to clip it into your horse’s coat or paint it on its hindquarters.  You may stitch it to your saddlepad or wear it as a bib.  The choice is yours.”  Kolivan hands over several white cloths marked with clear black 84s.  “Communicator.  That should be intuitive.  It will display the location of the nearest check-in point, as well as time elapsed in the race and the date.  After one week, it will display rider rankings based on who is closest to the finish line as the crow flies.  Any pertinent notices and alerts will also come through this device.”

Keith accepts each item as Kolivan hands it over.  He expects that to be the last of it, but Kolivan surprises him with one last item.  “And finally, this is your helmet.”

“Sorry, what?” Keith finally asks, squinting at the red helmet dwarfed in Kolivan’s huge hands.

“It is standard issue.  All Voltron riders will be wearing a helmet like this, regardless if they brought their own or not.  There is a camera embedded in it so that spectators can watch the action.”  Keith has no choice but to take the helmet from the Galra.  He puts it on his head experimentally, unused to wearing any sort of headgear for riding.  It’s cumbersome.  Keith’s head suddenly feels floppy and unstable on his neck.  “It’s mandatory to wear the helmet.  Any further questions?”

Keith looks down at everything gathered in his arms, then back up at Kolivan, and shakes his heavy head.

“Good luck,” Kolivan says brusquely, and Keith snatches his saddlebags back and retreats to his room. 

Once in the privacy of his room, Keith sets the helmet down on the dresser facing the wall and drapes the saddlepad over it.  He doesn’t like the idea that he’s going to be constantly watched, but he should’ve remembered the coverage of the last VET was mostly helmet-cam footage.  It doesn’t take long for him to stuff a few essential changes of clothes, the communicator, and the saddlepad into the largest saddlebags.  It leaves the insulated case free for Keith’s food and the sack for Red’s food.  Altogether, it doesn’t weigh too much and Keith’s pleased about that sole fact at least.  The sky outside is rapidly darkening, and Keith decides then he’ll spend the night with Red.  His stomach is starting to tie itself into knots, and the only thing that can soothe him is Red.

Keith succeeds in sneaking back out to the barn without encountering officials or other riders.  He slips into Red’s paddock and greets his mare, then arranges his bags and tack in the run-in shed before bedding down and using his saddle as a pillow.  Red, familiar with this procedure, comes and stands by Keith even though she’s not hobbled or otherwise compelled to stay near him.

“You’re a good girl, Red,” Keith says softly as he wraps his official race colors around himself like a blanket.  “We’ll do fine tomorrow.”

Red whickers at Keith, blowing warm breath over his face, then surprises Keith by settling gently down beside him.  All Keith’s anxieties quiet and still with the proximity of his mare.  She lays with her back to Keith, like she’s conscious of her hooves, and Keith slings an arm over her warm withers and passes out almost immediately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! Another picture! I've been really bad about actually including the illustrations, my apologies. I'll be going back and adding in profile images of Duva and Silas and Daibazaal later as well, and I'll let you know when those pictures are in there so you can go back and see them.


	5. In The Nervous Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the race finally underway, Keith thinks he's ready for anything Voltron can throw at him. He's wrong. The very first night of the race has him fleeing for his life, and making an unexpected ally along the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, the chapter so many of you have been waiting eagerly for! I had _so_ much fun writing it and it ended up being really long, so I hope you enjoy it too!
> 
> This also means I've gone through the backlog of chapters so posting will slow down. Expect new chapters out on Fridays or Saturdays (and they won't always be 10k, so this is a treat!).

**VET DAY 1**

Keith’s vibrating nerves and a slight chill wake him when it’s still dark.  Red is standing at attention at the far end of the paddock, watching with alert ears and blown nostrils as the barn slowly comes to life.  For a moment, Keith lies on the cold ground and stares up at the roof of the run-in.  The biggest race of his life is going to begin in a few short hours.  At the thought, his guts almost rip themselves apart with anxiety, but he forces everything to still.

_There’s no time for anxiety.  I’ve just got to do this.  I’ve got to win this,_ Keith tells himself, then he rouses.  It’s still deceptively quiet save for the high-pitched droning of millions of bugs, but off in the distance Keith hears birds faintly beginning to chirp.  This kind of peace, Keith appreciates.  Shame it’s about to be broken, but there will be plenty of this sort of peace once the race is underway.  Keith slings Red’s tack over the inner fence and covers it with his colors before venturing into the barn to get her more hay.  It’ll be the last easy meal she has, so Keith wants to make absolutely sure she has it.  Before he goes, though, he pulls his knife out of one of the saddlebags and straps its sheath around his hips.  He hasn’t carried it up until now for fear of having it confiscated.

Inside the barn, only four horses have been pulled out of their stalls so far.  Like Red, they know what’s happening and are brightly alert.  At the far end, near the entrance to the hayloft, is the Galras’ big blue roan.  There’s nobody around her, which leads Keith to believe the Champion and his entourage are gathering tack or something else.  The mare whickers at him as he approaches, but doesn’t display any treat-seeking behaviors.  Keith offers a hand for her to sniff as he ducks under her cross-ties to get to the hayloft.

“Hey.”

Keith’s head jerks around only to see the Champion, sans trainers and guards, standing in the aisle with his arms full of tack.  A guilty flush hits Keith’s cheeks as he realizes he’s still touching the mare’s muzzle and he scoots wordlessly through the doorway of the hayloft, bolting up the stairs.

_Definitely the best way to handle that,_ Keith scolds himself, catching his breath at the top of the stairs.  The scent of timothy fills his lungs soothingly.  He makes his way to the far end of the hayloft, quite a bit of a walk considering the hayloft spans the entire length of the barn, and hauls open the door there.  Red looks up at the noise of the door opening, and Keith whistles at her.  Then he turns to the nearest bale of hay, pulls out his knife, and pops the baling twine.  He heaves half the bale out the door.  It lands, bounces, and breaks apart ten feet away from Red’s gate.  She makes a forlorn noise that has Keith chuckling.

Rather than walk past the Champion again after that awkward encounter, Keith opts to scale the outside of the barn.  He hasn't seen any officials so far, so if he’s quick about it, he shouldn’t get in trouble.  Carefully, he slides the door mostly shut, then slips out and lowers himself until he’s hanging by his fingertips from the edge of the hayloft.  Nobody below him, Keith drops and rolls once, quickly, as he hits the ground.  He looks up to see the Champion and several Galra and the blue roan all staring at him.  _Fuck._

Keith stands, his ankles smarting slightly, and walks off toward Red’s paddock with as much dignity as he can possibly muster.  Reaching the scattered hay, Keith kicks the individual flakes through the gate and Red happily tears into them as Keith ducks through both fences.  He fetches the rubber curry comb from his saddlebag and curries Red as she goes to town on her breakfast.  Her coat is so short and fine because of the summer-like weather that there’s not much grooming for Keith to do, really, but the process is familiar and relaxing to both of them.  As Keith works, the barn and the sky come to life before his eyes. 

It isn’t long before race officials appear and start directing aliens and horses about.  Keith is cinching the girth when the tall Galra officiant, Kolivan, appears at the gate.

“Keith.  You need to collect your rations and report to the vets for an initial examination.”  Kolivan eyes Red, and she looks back at him defiantly.  “They’ll need to weigh your horse, so you will have to untack her.  Rations are being distributed outside the north wing of the barn.”

“Yes, sir,” Keith grumbles, and Kolivan marches off.  He’s not eager to plunge into the nightmare inside the barn, but he’s been given his orders.  Casting one final look around the paddock, Keith secures everything on the saddle, then for good measure, stuffs generous handfuls of hay and grass into Red’s mouth to keep her happy through the vet exam.  She’s never seen a vet before, and knowing her personality, Keith anticipates her reacting badly.

Keith leads Red out of the paddock and into the barn.  In the thirty, maybe forty, minutes it took for Keith to tack up, every Voltron participant had come out of the woodwork, along with all the officials.  Keith catches sight of Kolivan’s tall form in the distance, directing the flow of horses out of the main aisle towards one wing.  A line of officials keep a thin vein open in the main aisle for Keith to pass by the horses being groomed and tacked; they sweep him along and Kolivan points him down towards the north wing.  The noise level inside the compound is almost overwhelming.  Red’s ears are flat back against her head, tail swishing wildly, managing to look threatening despite the handlebar mustache of foliage sticking out of either side of her mouth.

In the south wing, the stalls have been emptied out and the vets are summoning horses and their handlers in one at a time.  Keith waits and watches the process which moves with industrial efficiency while Red sucks on her grass pacifier.  An Olkari sticks their head out of a stall at the end of the row, spies Keith, and waves him down.

The stall is occupied by three Olkari, one in a doctor’s white robes, the others wearing green scrubs.  “Owner’s name?” the vet asks, holding a tablet.

“Keith Kogane.”

The vet taps on the tablet and the vet techs gather around.  They pull devices out of the pockets of their scrubs that look similar to the communicator Keith was given, then scan the tablet screen.  The devices beep, and the vet nods to them.

“Take her vitals.”

“What are you doing to her?” Keith asks, unable to keep some of his worry out of his voice.  The vet looks up at him.

“We’re just gathering baseline information for your horse so we know what healthy looks like for her.  That way when she’s checked at stops, we can make sure she’s still doing well,” the vet explains.  Keith watches like a hawk as one tech presses their device to the pulse point underneath Red’s jaw.  The mare munches slowly on her pacifier, seemingly unbothered by the strangers touching her.  The other tech crouches down and runs their device down each of Red’s legs.

“Please remove the saddle.  The bridle can remain,” one tech says.  Keith does as he’s told, dumping the saddle in the corner of the stall.  The vet pulls the shank out of Keith’s hands and Red throws her head in alarm.  They reach up to pat her nose to reassure her; Keith opens his mouth to warn them to stop, but his voice dies in his throat when Red allows the Olkari to grasp her nose and gently lower her head, leading her to the flat scale on the other side of the stall.  The three Olkari skillfully coax Red onto the scale, holding her in place until it registers her weight and beeps.  They return the horse towards Keith and gesture for him to re-tack her.

“Could I…?” Keith asks hesitantly, gesturing towards the vet’s tablet.  They raise their eyebrows at him, but hand over the tablet.  He’s never seen Red’s vitals before, and most of the numbers are meaningless to him, but it’s a strange feeling seeing Red; his horse, his life, his other half; represented in metrics.  He hands the tablet back to the vet, who nods, and then he’s swiftly shepherded out of the stall and swept from the south wing.

Outside the north wing, the sun is dangerously close to rising and Keith forces down another wave of nerves as he finds himself in a line of horses and aliens.  Officials are shouting, waving their arms, sending bodies down different lines.  It’s remarkable how much the entire production makes Keith feel like an item on an assembly line.  He gets shunted along, directed to different officials who swarm him and Red.  Everything becomes a blur as Keith devotes all his attention to keeping Red under control through the sensory overload.

Once Keith and Red have been ejected from the assembly line, they take a moment to gather their bearings.  Dazed, Keith walks around Red to survey her.  A red ribbon has been tied into her tail and the saddlebags have all been stuffed to bursting with food for both of them.

“Alright then,” Keith mutters, patting Red on the neck.  She turns to look at Keith, decides he has nothing for her to chew on now that she’s finished her pacifier, then throws her head down to graze.  Keith pulls her head back up automatically while looking around to assess what everyone else is doing.  There appears to be a general movement towards one of the training trails.  Riders are mounted, surrounded by their trainers and owners and well-wishers and spectators.  The horses are hot, prancing and dancing sideways, held by the bits by the trainers.  Keith unclips the shank, fastening it around Red’s neck, picks up the reins, and boosts himself into the saddle.

Red dances, starting forward suddenly.  Keith reels her in, tightening his calves around her barrel to hold her, reassure her.  She quiets fractionally.  He reaches behind him to grab his heavy helmet, strapping the thing to his head.  Feeling like a bobblehead, Keith pats Red’s neck.

“Let’s go.”

Keith forces Red to walk and holds her mouth firmly, feeling her entire body strung tight and humming with energy.  All the horses and aliens around them crush in tighter as the trail narrows into the forest; everyone and everything is bigger than them.  Red suddenly pins her ears and throws her head into the air; Keith whips around to see a giant, hairy off-planet breed horse lipping at the red ribbon in her tail.

“Watch it!” he snarls, waving an arm at the offending horse, who recoils.  “Don’t you know what a red ribbon means?”  The alien rider sneers at Keith but doesn’t respond.  Keith taps his heels against Red’s sides and she picks up her stride, weaving through the crowd.  A dull hum reaches Keith’s ears and grows in volume as they go forward until it erupts into mind-numbing roar the second they clear the forest.  Riders are being funneled down a cordoned pathway between two mountainous spectator stands.  Keith resists the urge to crane his head back to see the top of the structures and tamps down on nerves again, rubbing his thumbs along the reins for something to ground him. 

In the center of all these riders, he can’t see a thing.  Looking around, Keith sees a narrow opening between two horses and urges Red through it, squeezing out of the center until his leg rubs up against the rope cordon.  This is barely better.  Spectators reach out to touch Keith and Red as they pass, alien hands trailing down their legs and sides.  Red shivers, skin twitching irritatedly while Keith’s fingers itch for a lasso or bullwhip to fend off the touchy aliens who are throwing off Red’s focus.  Instead, he shrugs off his jacket and twists it up into a sort of fat rope, swinging it at every spectator who reaches out a hand or tentacle to paw at his horse.  The sleeves crack against skin and draw yelps out of the offenders.  Keith pushes Red on faster.

The cordon changes angle and the channel widens, but Red is still forced to move along the barrier.  VET officials now replace the spectators, shouting for riders to move all the way up.  The movement of the crowd slows and stops except for the steady crush of more horses pressing into the space.  _This must be the start line,_ Keith realizes, standing in the stirrups to try to get a better view, but on a fourteen-some-odd-hand horse in a crowd of seventeen-hand-plus giants, it’s a futile effort.  He stuffs his arms back into his jacket for the sense of security the well-worn red and white leather provides.

_“Welcome everyone, riders and spectators alike, to the 35 th Voltron Endurance Trials!” _

Keith looks up so quickly his neck cracks.  On a massive screen fifty feet up in the air, the Altean King Alfor is beaming down at them.  _“I will be hosting this year’s Trials, which are, as always, a celebration of human horse culture.  Spectators!  Gathered before you are five hundred of the best riders in the Universe.  They are experts in human traditions of riding and Terran survival and navigation, aboard the finest-bred horses from Earth and four hundred other planets throughout the galaxy._

_“They will traverse one thousand miles as fast as they can push themselves and their horses to cross the finish line first and win the grand purse of six million interplanetary units.  Additionally, we will be watching with bated breath the highly contentious category of owner/trainer/rider, the purse of which is a juicy two and a half million.”_ King Alfor’s eyes crinkle as he grins at his own joke, a soft chuckle rippling through the spectators.  Keith grips the reins in his left hand, resting it on Red’s neck so he can stroke along her mane as he reaches back and fishes around in his saddlebag for his compass.

The horses begin to shift nervously as a collective unit as Alfor’s speech goes on.  The tension is rising among the riders, starting to buzz like an electric current along skin and hides.  Instead of giving in to it, Keith takes a deep breath and rubs his knuckles firmly into Red’s withers in the spot where he knows it relaxes her.  He flicks open his compass.  The needle spins a moment, before settling quivering on west.  Keith rotates the compass appropriately, calling up his mental image of the holographic map of the planet.  He’s got to go straight ahead to get to the forest and keep heading west until he reaches the desert.

King Alfor stops speaking as Keith pockets the compass.  _“To the riders:  ride well, and Godspeed.”_

 

The starting bell splits the air like lightning. 

 

Red throws her head up into the air, rearing as the herd jolts forward anxiously.  Determination fills Keith, pushing every other emotion out of the way.  He kicks Red forwards right as a hole opens ahead of them, between two giant bays.  Red shoots through it, kicking off so fast Keith has to grab the horn of the saddle suddenly.  Keith ducks down over her neck as they race through the tightly-packed crowd.  His knees knock against haunches and barrels and other knees.  The crowd begins screaming.  Red pours on the speed, gaining on the frontrunners of the pack. 

They’re going too fast.  Keith knows he should pull Red up, it’s not worth racing like this straight off the starting line, but he also knows he needs to get out of the pack.  The horses are thinning now as Red powers ahead.  The crowd’s shrieking is growing fainter, but the announcer’s booming voice chases Keith away from the chaos of the start line.  He doesn’t look back as the packed earth around the start gives way to grass.  The savannah unrolls under Red’s hooves, stretching long and flat and empty ahead of them.

Out of the corner of his eye, Keith sees some riders drop down to a trot and peel off to the sides.

“Alright Red,” Keith murmurs, sitting back in the saddle.  Red slows from a gallop to a canter, falling into a fast trot only when Keith touches the reins.  He holds her, patting her neck and giving her soft reassurances until her trot turns swinging and leisurely, easy for Keith to sit.  “Good girl, there we go.”

Keith lets out a heavy breath and consciously loosens his body.  He can only faintly hear the announcer now, and finally turns to look back at the starting line.  It’s a small, dark spot in the rustling gold of the savannah.  Then he becomes conscious of the fact that there’s a camera embedded in his helmet.  Though he’s far away from any of the other riders— _Hunk was right, five hundred riders do spread out quickly—_ he’s not truly alone, not with potentially hundreds of thousands of viewers looking through the electronic eye in his helmet, spying on his ride.

The thought of the voyeuristic camera gives Keith pause as he turns back around in the saddle and sets his sights on the horizon ahead of him.  Can he truly relax if he can be dropped in on unwittingly by an entire galaxy’s worth of viewers at any moment?  He supposes it shouldn’t feel any worse than having a cameraman present, but it’s easy to forget the camera.  It creates the illusion of solitude, privacy.  Maybe that’s part of the appeal of watching the VET.  It seems so much more personal, from the rider’s perspective.  Seeing how they ride and talk to their horses; Keith sure found that fascinating when he watched the VET four years ago and felt like he was riding along with each competitor as the coverage flipped through the different feeds.

That train of thought begins to lead Keith in paranoid circles, so he redirects it to his surroundings, to Red.  Patches of shadow drift across the grass as thin clouds scud across the morning sky.  The sun is still behind Keith, throwing Red’s steadily-shortening shadow onto the ground in front of her as she trots along.  The grass is partially dried, baked by the sun, rustling like hay as Red moves through it; in the absence of birds and trees, the grass and humming insects are the only sounds apart from Keith’s and Red’s synchronized breathing.  Keith keeps a careful watch on Red’s condition, feeling the dampness of her neck and flanks occasionally to make sure she isn’t too overheated. 

 

They’ll have to find water soon.  Voltron provides the riders and horses with enough food, but no water.  The assumption is they’re well-enough versed in survival to find it themselves, so Keith starts casually scanning the lay of the land to try to gauge where it slopes down, where a watering hole would most likely be.  Nothing reveals itself immediately.  The savannah is remarkably unremarkable.  Red trots along dutifully like she was made for it.

 

Hours later, it’s actually Red who finds the water.

 

Keith had zoned out, switched from sitting to posting several times, and hummed some campfire songs as he picked out the shapes of animals in the slow-moving clouds.  Red, in the meantime, had been carefully and steadily making her way down a near-imperceptible slope.  As the sun emerges from behind a cloud and shoots Keith in the eyes with a beam of late-afternoon light, it snaps him out of his trance.  Grumbling and shielding his eyes, Keith pulls out his compass, rotates it, and groans when he sees they’ve been heading south instead of west for god only knows how long.

“That’s what I get for letting the horse drive,” he mutters to himself, preparing to take up the reins again and direct Red back on course, when he sees several things at once.  There’s another horse not too far from them; maybe half a mile.  There’s also a watering hole in between them and the other horse.  A sense of marvel washes over Keith and he leans down to rub Red’s neck.  “That’s what I get for letting the horse drive,” he says again, laughing.  “You’re really incredible, Red.  What would I do without you?”

Red doesn’t respond, but turns her head to look at Keith with one big, intelligent eye.  The tilt of her ears is fond and pleased.

They reach the watering hole at the same time as the other horse.  Both riders dismount and fill their canteens, their horses drinking quietly on opposite sides of the watering hole.  Keith unfurls a bandana from his back pocket, wetting it to sponge the sweat off his neck and off of Red.  As he does so, he gauges the surroundings.  The other rider is Puigian, wearing colors Keith isn’t familiar with.  They’re likely the official rider for any one of hundreds of worlds that have official competitors in this race.  They don’t acknowledge Keith, and Keith doesn’t acknowledge them.  Apart from the Puigian and their horse, there are no signs any other riders have visited this watering hole yet.  No hoofprints in the mud, nothing clouding the still water.  That either means there’s many other watering holes that others have stopped at, or that Keith and this Puigian are the frontrunners so far.  Keith straightens up and scans the horizon, looking back in the direction he came.  He doesn’t see any dark spots in the golden grass that would mean horses.

Something about that unsettles him.  This is so unlike the TEC or Mars, where everyone had followed a main trail.  Keith could keep an eye on his competitors, look back and see how much or how little of a lead he had.  Here, with an entire dwarf planet at their disposal, Keith has no way of knowing how to pace himself to win.  Red raises her head then, smacking her lips contentedly, a small waterfall of drool and water cascading from her mouth.  Keith takes that as her sign she’s ready to continue.  He mounts up as the Puigian’s horse is finishing, checks his compass, and points Red west again.  The Puigian heads in the opposite direction.

Refreshed, Red steps out energetically and pulls at the bit, raring to go faster as the sun settles lower in the sky and brighter in their eyes.  Keith sighs, knowing he really shouldn’t give in to his pushy horse, but does anyways, throwing her the reins.  She takes off at a canter so fast it pushes a gallop; Keith pulls her back swiftly.

“Not too much,” he mutters to her, fixing her pace at a steady lope.  Red’s plenty fit; she should be able to maintain this pace for a while, though perhaps not as long as she might normally because of her racehorse-like start.  Keith supposes he should’ve seen that coming.  He’s raced with Red before:  when he was really hurting for money, he’d go to unofficial mob racetracks, enter at the last minute, bet everything he had on himself, and he and Red would run like hell.  It was pretty successful most of the time because the bookies would drastically underestimate Red, who is small and neither a Quarter Horse nor a Thoroughbred, and Keith would make back twenty times his original bet.  He could only do that once, maybe twice, before the track got wise to him and kicked him out, though he did it enough that Red became conditioned to the sound of a starting bell.  She always was a hellion to load, anyways.

 

* * *

 

 

They drive a straight path through the savannah, Keith’s mind wandering far and wide, caught up in reminiscing while he keeps an absent eye on the sun.  It’s a little while before Keith pulls Red up.  Her pace falters, triggering Keith to tune back in from the world of his thoughts.  She comes back down to a trot, blowing hard, holding her head low.  Keith gives her a hearty pat on the neck then turns his attention to the sun simmering fat and orange on the horizon.  They’ve got probably an hour left of light before night proper falls.  While there’s no ban on riding at night, it’s a desperate move Keith doesn’t have to want to resort to this early in the race, and Red needs the rest.

Still, though, Keith keeps Red trotting until the sun disappears beneath the edge of the earth, until the sky blooms in vivid purples and reds, he keeps her trotting westward until the tawny blues and dusky blacks of the night creep into the heavens.

Finally, Keith whoas his mare, who responds so quickly Keith jolts forwards and catches the saddle horn in the gut.  He groans “thanks for that, Red,” and tenderly dismounts.  The impact of his boots on the dry ground send electric sparks up his legs, his nerves buzzing like TV static.  It feels like ants are crawling over the lower half of his body.  Red waits patiently, sucking on her snaffle, for Keith to stop wincing and recover from his riding legs.  He sighs, clapping her on her meaty shoulder to signify he’s good.  Red sighs back at him.

In the last few minutes of dim light, Keith untacks Red and fishes around in his pack for the hobbles.  He unfastens the bit and reins from Red’s bridle, leaving her in just a halter, and hobbles her two front legs.  She immediately tears into the savannah grass, too impatient for Keith to prepare her feed bag.  Figuring the mare’s well-enough satisfied for a few minutes, Keith arranges the saddle and pack, unrolling the Mexican blanket he normally uses as a saddlepad for Red.  It’s made of thick-woven wool in bright, geometric patterns; it had been a gift from a vaquero Keith had spent a week with on a long cattle drive.  Many a cold desert night Keith had spent under this well-loved blanket, and if not for Kolivan’s advisement to use his race colors as a saddlepad at the start, he would’ve had it on Red’s back rather than rolled up and tied behind the cantle of the saddle.  Well, that and Keith would look unmistakably cowboyish riding a mustang in an old reining saddle with a Mexican blanket for a pad… so on second thought, it’s probably best he didn’t showcase that for the masses to see on the starting line.

“Red,” Keith says, reaching down to grab the mare’s halter.  She pays him no mind, attacking the grass as if it had offended her.  _“Red,”_ Keith says more insistently, really pulling on her halter.  He manages to sway her, but not break contact.  “Come on you cow, I’ve got nice food _right here,”_ Keith gives two sharp, hard yanks on the leather and finally frees Red’s head from the ground.  She looks less than pleased with him, making a dive towards the grass again.

Keith sighs, muttering under his breath as he clips the feed bag to Red’s halter.  “Eat it and be happy.  You need the calories.”  Then he remembers his helmet.  Then he remembers the camera in his helmet.  He takes it off and drops it carelessly to the ground.  It lands camera-up.  Keith frowns at it before kicking it over so the camera faces into the dirt.

“Great, the entire galaxy just saw me call my horse a cow.  Awesome,” he mutters, settling down cross-legged to eat his own dinner.  Admittedly, it’s almost too generous to call two high-density energy bars dinner, but it’s what Keith’s been given based on his “calculated nutritional needs” for his body composition.  As he chews on the too-sugary, cardboard-like bar, he watches the sky.  Unlike on Earth, where the stars gradually become visible as the Sun stops dominating the sky, the sky is eerily blank until the stars burst into existence like tiny camera flashes.  Keith watches row after row of artificial stars, the product of clever satellites, pop onto the canvas of the sky.  It’s bizarre and wrong, but it a fascinating way.  When the stars reach over Keith’s head, he tips backwards to rest his head on his saddle and watch their progress to the other horizon.  Once all the stars are lit and both bars are finished, Keith crosses his arms over his stomach and looks over to where Red is finishing up her feed bag some ten feet away already.

“You’ve always been weirdly good at moving in those hobbles, haven’t you,” Keith says to her.  She just turns and looks at him, then starts tossing her head in the way that means she’s finished her nice grain and wants to go back to eating the crappy savannah weeds, thank you.  Keith obliges her.  He leads Red closer to where he’s decided he’ll sleep, even though he knows he’ll wake up in the morning and find her a hundred yards away.  It’s just the routine.

As Keith’s tucking the feed bag back into his pack, he grabs the communicator.  Out of idle curiosity, he powers it on.  The blue glow of the screen is searing in the darkness, forcing Keith to look away until it dims appropriately.  When he looks back at it, the screen displays three options.

  1. Announcements
  2. Standings
  3. Progress



Keith thumbs through each.  Announcements is empty, as is Standings.  Keith recalls Kolivan saying something about rankings after the first week.  Under Individual Progress, though, the communicator tells Keith that he and Red covered nearly forty miles since dawn.

“Hey, Red,” Keith calls to his mare.  She gives him an ear.  “We did forty miles today.  Proud of you.”

Forty miles a day is damn good, but it’s not a sustainable pace.  Thirty a day is what Red can do forever, basically.  Keith could ask her for forty a day, but not for more than a few days in a row.  Still, he’s pleased with a strong start, but can’t help but wonder if other riders will ride through the night.  That leads him to think about other strategies, like if some competitors will push their horses for days then take rest days.  He’s seen it in other races and doesn’t agree with the practice, but Voltron’s taken precautions to make sure the horses aren’t being mistreated.  It helps set his mind easier as stows the communicator and lays back down.

 

Sleep has always been a superpower of Keith’s.  The moment he closes his eyes and decides to sleep, he is unconscious.  No questions asked.  The only drawback, bred by years of sleeping in perilous places, is that he wakes at the slightest sound.

 

The sound that wakes Keith though is not slight, not at all.

 

The sound that wakes Keith is a woman screaming.

 

Keith swears his eyes were closed for all of thirty seconds before thunder rolls through the ground long, deep, and sustained.  A thin shriek rises above it, startling Keith into awareness.  He jolts upright and the first thing he sees is Red.  She’s twenty feet away, stock-still and trembling, head raised high with nostrils flared in alarm, eyes wide.  Her ears quiver, focused on something behind Keith.  He whips around.

Something enormous and pale is rapidly approaching, racing towards them like a ghost across the savannah.

_“Run!  Run, you have to run!”_ a woman screams.  Fear paralyzes Keith.

_“He’s coming, you must run!”_ she screams again, voice raw and shrill with terror.  Red snorts suddenly, squeals in fear, and Keith is up and running towards her before he even consciously realizes what’s happening.  The mare’s panicking, fighting to get out of her hobbles.  Keith dives for the hobbles, dangerously close to her thrashing legs, ripping the quick-release straps off her.  All at once, he grabs her halter, somehow manages to throw the tack onto her back, wraps the Mexican blanket around his body as the rumble of fast hoofbeats grows louder and more distinct.

Keith barely pauses for half a second, hands fisted tight, terrified, in Red’s mane.  In a roar of hooves and a burst of wind, a huge spectral horse whips past them.  Something strikes Keith _hard_ in the shoulder, sending him tumbling into Red’s side.  The woman lets loose a wordless, ear-splitting scream.  Something crunches horrifically.  Keith’s shoulders howl with pain as they’re nearly wrenched out of their sockets and he’s flung through the darkness wildly. Red’s breathing fast and terrified like a steam locomotive, dragging Keith behind her as she bolts in a blind panic through the dead of night.

Keith has to get on her back.  He’ll be torn to shreds dragged behind her like this.  Adrenaline floods his body like lightning.  A shout rips itself from behind his clenched teeth as Keith hauls himself through the pain of his shoulders and into the saddle.  His stomach plummets the second he realizes Red doesn’t have any reins on.  He has no way to get through to her, as scared as she is.  Then he looks up and realizes she’s following the great white horse and the screaming woman, racing after them swept up in their hysteria.

“What are you running from?” Keith shouts at her, but his voice is ripped away by the wind, trampled under the horses’ hooves.  He does the only thing he can do:  he urges Red faster.  Just as he draws even with the woman, a sharp whistle splits the air.  Keith looks over his shoulder, his whipping hair stinging his eyes, to see five dark, surging shadows behind them. 

_He’s coming._

A primal fear wells up in Keith and he kicks Red in the ribs, kicks her into the fastest gallop she can manage.  It’s a black, jagged fear that shreds Keith’s insides, tells him it’ll kill him, claws its way up his throat tasting like bile.  Red runs faster.

The horizon is darkening, impossibly.  It’s wrong, but Keith’s terror-addled brain can’t comprehend why.  The woman shrieks, “in there!” a spindly arm extended towards the wall of shadow rising like a tsunami ahead of them.

“No!” Keith shouts back, helpless as they plunge into the darkness.

The only thing Keith can hear is his own breath and the horses’ breath, their hoofbeats oddly muffled.  It isn’t until something razor-sharp hits him in the cheek he gets it.  They reached the forest.  The canopy is so dense no light can penetrate it.  It’s truly dark in here.  Keith halfway reaches for one of his glowsticks before the sound of horses crashing through the underbrush behind them stops him.  He just hopes desperately Red can see.

“Spread out!” a male voice comes through the trees and Keith _knows_ that voice.  It’s edged with something horrific, ragged with the bloodlust of the hunt, but it’s Lotor’s slippery voice.

_He’s coming._

Keith’s heart stutters.  His throat closes up around a fresh wave of acidic fear, but he’s able to force this one down.  The claws of his instincts, the ones screeching at him to _run faster or you’ll die,_ are dug deep into his mind but not so deep Keith can’t figure out Lotor’s tracking them by sound, unless he’s got night vision.  But it’s so goddamn dark in these woods that it shouldn’t work.  Even if he’s got echolocation, the density of the trees would throw it off.  It’s the sound, it’s got to be.  Nothing about two panicked horses running through the woods is quiet.

“We need to stop!  Stop!” Keith calls to the woman, wherever she is next to him.  He flings a hand out and it connects with cloth, an arm.  Keith grips it tight and pulls, leaning hard backwards and praying Red’s come to her senses enough to listen to him now.  She stops so suddenly, nearly sitting down on her haunches and sliding, that Keith gets thrown onto her neck.  Miraculously, he’s still got the woman’s sleeve in an iron grip.

“Trust me,” he says hoarsely, keeping the slick fabric between his fingers as he turns Red at a ninety degree angle to the path they were just on and kicks her forward.  She staggers.  Keith’s heart drops.  She’s exhausted, trembling beneath him.  Keith presses his lips hard together and kicks her again.  It feels horrible, but this is life or death.  Red goes.

The crashing sounds of Lotor’s posse grow louder and louder, making it almost impossible to keep Red at a walk, but Keith does.  It’s what has to be done.  The ground suddenly slopes down and Red stops.  Keith swings down off her back, letting go of the woman’s sleeve only to grab her reins.  He steps forward into a bush. 

_Wait—this is perfect._ Keith grips Red’s halter and pulls both horses through the bush, down into what he has to guess is a depression of some sort in the pitch black.  They should be safe here, but the crashing just gets closer.  _The horses.  Their breathing._

“Get off, get off,” Keith hisses, grabbing at the woman’s leg.  She doesn’t respond.  Keith jerks her out of the saddle and she spills onto the ground with a thud.  He’ll apologize later.  Lotor is homing in on them, getting closer by the second, because of how loud the horses are breathing.  The Mexican blanket is still somehow wrapped around his body.  He wads it up and reaches out, flailing until his hand connects with the white horse’s nose.  He smothers it.  Keith wrenches his jacket off and stifles Red’s breathing with it.

The horses are still for a beat before they panic anew.  Keith grits his teeth, praying against all odds this will somehow work.  Then suddenly the horses go still and Keith hopes desperately it’s not because he’s killing them.  The crashing slows down and comes to a stop.  A big horse is breathing hard not ten feet away from Keith, just on the other side of the bush.  Keith holds his breath.

Chills wrack him, nervous sweat bursting out along his overheated spine and forehead.  _Lotor **has** to know we’re right here, he’s gonna kill us, _Keith’s brain screams and he can’t shut it down.  His heart is still racing on the verge of palpitations.  Further away he can hear the other riders charging through the underbrush, but they’re not getting any closer.

Keith’s lungs begin to burn.  Still the big horse does not move.  Fabric rustles on the other side of the bush.  _Please don’t be dismounting, dear fuck do not be dismounting._ The burning in Keith’s chest turns into sharp searing.

The big horse turns and crashes back through the underbrush, away from them.

Keith counts to five in his head before dropping the blanket and jacket and sucking in a huge, desperate breath.  His hands immediately find Red’s head, fingers fly across her face to check her.  Every part of the mare is shaking like a leaf, her breathing ragged and uneven.  The other horse doesn’t sound much better.

“I’m so sorry Red; so, so sorry,” Keith murmurs, wrapping his arms around Red’s neck.  No apology can truly encompass how _shitty_ Keith feels for pushing his mare to the very limits of her endurance so unfairly, then literally smothering her in a panic.

“You saved all our lives,” the woman says softly after a long moment.  Keith almost starts.  He’d nearly forgotten about her.  He doesn’t know how to respond to that.  “When dawn breaks tomorrow, we must cover our tracks.”

Keith grunts affirmatively, already working on taking off Red’s tack by touch alone.  The darkness in the woods is so deep it’s disorienting.  He’s got absolutely no sense of the time since he can’t see the stars.  All he knows is that daybreak will come all too soon and he’ll be so loathe to saddle Red up again, just a few short hours after this horrifying ordeal.  But still Keith knows he’s got to do it.  He came into the VET with a vague sense it would be hard, but he didn’t realize he was going to be hunted on the very first night.

_Any danger comes from other riders._

The words haunt Keith as he lays down on the harsh forest floor, head on his saddle, and decides to be unconscious.

 

* * *

 

Keith wakes to beeping this time.  He blinks sleep out of his eyes, shrugging off the blanket that’s too hot now.  Every part of his body is pounding in time with his heartbeat, the skin of his arms and palms and cheeks stinging.  His whole front feels tacky with sweat, shirt clinging to his skin.  Keith feels out with his hands, then encounters the source of his overheating.  Red is laying almost right up against him, exuding heat like a furnace.  He gives her a couple careful pats on the barrel and she rouses, looking over her shoulder at him sleepily.

“Good girl,” he mumbles, stretching before standing.

Whatever woke Keith is still beeping.  He casts around for the source of it, pinpointing his pack.  It must be his communicator.  He digs it out and sees an announcement flashing on the screen.

**Urgent Warning:**

**At 0100 a rider was ambushed and killed by a gang.  Two other riders were injured at 0130 by the gang.  We advise all riders to consider this gang highly dangerous and stay in pairs for safety.**

Keith frowns at the message, not quite comprehending it yet.  He looks up and surveys the area he finds himself in, memories of last night trickling back into his consciousness.  It’s still dim, so it can’t be long after sunrise.  The light filtering through the canopy is green and weak, a slight breeze whispering through the leaves.  The woods are dense, denser than the forest that surrounded the barn complex.  The birds are quiet here.  It’s eerie, so far from the idyllic summertime tableau that Keith had ridden through over the past few days before the race.

Then Keith’s eyes land on the other rider, the woman, who had effectively saved his life last night.  If she hadn’t woken him when she did, Keith and Red wouldn’t have had enough time to get away from Lotor and end up… here.  In a small dish-like depression in the woods, surrounded by dense underbrush and dark-barked trees.

The woman is slumped against the trunk of a tree, head hanging so her long, white hair obscures her face.  If not for the rising and falling of her chest, Keith would have assumed she was dead.  Her horse, white as her hair but with the oddest lilac-grey markings like a Siamese cat, stands next to her, its muzzle just resting on the top of her head.  Its mane and tail are neatly braided up and stripped of tack, Keith can tell it’s got a slight swayback.  Despite that, it’s well-muscled and looks healthy.

Before Keith approaches his new companion, he checks over Red.  The mare is tired, that much is painfully obvious, but when Keith coaxes her to stand and runs his hands over her legs, she seems uninjured by last night’s crazy escape.  He even picks up each of her feet and checks for hot spots on her soles, carefully picking out a couple pebbles from the grooves between her bars and frogs with the point of his knife.  Then, figuring it can’t hurt, Keith prepares the feed bag with a little more grain and gives it to Red with an apologetic pat.  As the mare eats her breakfast, Keith cautiously approaches the woman and her horse.

The horse appears to have woken from its doze when Red stood up and is watching Keith neutrally, ears flickering rapidly between him and the sounds of the forest.  It probably doesn’t like him all that much after he suffocated it last night, but hopefully it won’t attack him for it.

“Hey, uh,” Keith says, voice raspy from sleep.  He clears his throat.  “Miss…?  Ma’am…?”

The woman doesn’t stir.  Keith bites down on his awkwardness and steps closer to her, extending a hand to her horse.  The horse recoils slightly but doesn’t step away from its rider.  Keith kneels a few feet from the woman, experimentally tapping her on the shoulder.

The world spins away from him, pain ricochets through Keith’s already-aching shoulders.  Something hard and spiky hits him in the cheek and he realizes it’s the forest floor.  There’s something heavy on his back, pinning his arms behind him.  He groans.

“Ow.  Look, sorry for startling you, but could you get off me?  I’m not gonna do anything,” Keith grimaces into the twigs and dirt.

“Oh, oh, my apologies.”  The weight disappears from Keith’s back.  He unfolds his creaking joints and pushes himself up onto his hands, looking over his shoulder at the woman.  Barely awake, she looks young and disoriented and her face is covered in hairline scratches.  She sits back on her haunches, suppressing a yawn while Keith rearranges himself into a more comfortable kneeling position.

“I’m Keith.”  He holds out one hand.

“I am Princess Allura of Altea.”  Princess Allura does not take Keith’s hand and he drops it awkwardly, feeling distinctly snubbed.  _Bratty royalty,_ he supposes.

“Sorry about, uh, smothering your royal horse last night.  But thanks for saving me from Lotor.”

“Yes, well, I understand why you had to do it.  I knew Prince Lotor was planning to pull out all the stops this year, but I didn’t realize he would resort to _murder_ on the first day.  You know, he has an unusual fascination with me and—hang on, what did you say your name was?” the princess cuts herself off and Keith feels a frown crawl onto his face.  Nothing she’s said or done so far has given him any impression other than a spoiled little girl riding (almost literally) on her father’s coattails.

“Keith.”  He congratulates himself internally on not adding a snide remark to it.

Princess Allura gasps, rocking back onto her heels with one scratched hand held over her mouth, scandalized.  _“You’re_ the one Lotor’s out for.”

“Oh perfect,” Keith snaps before he can help himself, throwing his hands up into the air.  He stands suddenly, pacing over to Red.  “What’s he got against me?  What did I do to him, since you seem to know him so well?”  He turns on his heel to see the princess standing too.

“I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.  Prince Lotor mentioned to me that there was a human rider whose name began with a K that was standing in his way to winning.  He didn’t say more, it was a very offhand comment.  I didn’t listen to him, he’s always on about some ridiculous tripe or the other.”  The princess sounds genuinely apologetic.  “There’s a great deal of tension between the prince and his father the emperor; I’m sure you heard the rumors about their fight.  It’s true, to an extent.  All I know for sure is that there stands to be a change in Galra leadership if Lotor wins Voltron this year.”

“Huh.”  Keith runs an anxious hand through his hair.  “Awesome.  I’m the only thing between a power-hungry, murderous psychopath and the Galra Empire,” he mutters, kicking at the leaf litter.  Red nudges him as if to remind him to breathe.  He unclips her feed bag and cleans it up because he needs something to do other than obsess over this new, distressing information or talk to the pretentious princess.

After a long silence, she says, “you’re upset.”

“No shit,” Keith grumbles, still fiddling with his pack.  He takes a deep breath, then heaves his saddle and pack off the ground, shaking the dirt and leaves off it.  The princess doesn’t say anything else as he silently saddles Red.  Even Red doesn’t mess with him the way she usually would, though Keith can’t tell for sure if it’s because of her exhaustion, his crappy mood, or both.

“I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Keith finally turns back around to face Princess Allura, who looks distinctly remorseful.  He softens slightly, pinching the bridge of his nose and choosing his words carefully.  “I know you didn’t.  It’s not even you.  I’ve just got a helluva lot going on right now and, fuck, you were there last night.  Not a good way to start this whole race off.  Shitty circumstances and I’m not thrilled about them, but there’s fuck-all I can do about it other than get on my horse and keep riding.”

Keith fishes around in one saddlebag until he finds Red’s bit and reins.  As he snaps it onto her bridle, he continues, “I got an announcement this morning.  The officials know about Lotor’s gang but they’re not doing anything about it.  They said to ride in pairs for safety.  So if you wanna stick with me, then do.  If you don’t, I get it.”

“I’ll ride with you, Keith,” Princess Allura says quickly.  He looks over at her, automatically smoothing Red’s forelock over the browband.

“Then saddle up, we’ve got to go.”

 

* * *

 

 

Keith and Princess Allura ride in silence for several hours.  After the princess verified her horse, the elderly stallion Fala that Keith had found so remarkable in the profiles, was alright, Keith had checked his compass and set out.  Navigating in the forest is tricky, disorienting.  Red muscles through the underbrush valiantly, Fala not too far behind her.  Keith had planned on keeping her at a walk for a while to let her recover, but Red surprised him by taking the bit between her teeth and moving up into a trot not too long after setting out. 

Now, around noon, Red pushes through a screen of thorny branches only to emerge on a thin thread of a trail.  “Huh,” Keith mutters, halting Red and pulling his sweat-damp hair off the nape of his neck.  Fala steps onto the trail then.  Princess Allura’s head swivels as she looks down the trail in both directions.

“A game trail?” she says, almost to herself.

“Can’t hurt to follow it.”  Keith consults his compass, and it indicates the trail does head in a somewhat westerly direction.  It’s good enough that he’s willing to follow it to give Red a break from bushwhacking.  He leans down and runs a hand over her chest.  It’s damp with sweat and a few thorns are stuck into her coat, but it doesn’t feel like she’s scratched or otherwise injured.  Sitting back up, Keith digs around in his pocket until he finds a spare piece of baling twine and uses that to tie his hair into a small, messy ponytail.  The forest just seems to trap heat, and it’s getting uncomfortable. 

“Keith, your helmet!”

“What about it?” Keith twists to look at Princess Allura, still smoothing down wisps of his hair.  Then he realizes what she means.  He doesn’t have it.

“Oh shit,” he hisses.  Helmets are mandatory.  Kolivan had explicitly said as much.  “It must be out in the savannah.”  Keith racks his brains to remember the events of last night in as much detail as he can.  The princess had come screaming into his camp, Fala body-slammed him into Red, something crunched—that’s it.  _Something crunched._ Fala had run over and destroyed Keith’s helmet.  He buries his face in his hands with a heavy sigh.

“You ran over it when you woke me up.”  Keith’s voice is muffled by his sweaty palms.  He doesn’t have to look at the princess to know she’s wearing the “terribly sorry” expression he’s already too used to.  Keith raises his head and takes a deep breath.  “Well, I guess if I’m gonna get disqualified, this has been a nice vacation, hasn’t it.” 

“If there’s any disagreement over it at the check, I’ll vouch for you,” Princess Allura says as Keith turns Red down the narrow trail.  He waves a hand at her.

“Thanks, but we’ll burn that bridge when we get there.”

 

* * *

 

 

They’re quiet for a while, just bobbing along.  Keith fidgets with his compass, checking it more frequently than strictly necessary.  They’re still relatively on course, though Keith knows they’re probably further south than he wanted to be at this point.  It couldn’t really be helped, what with the unplanned blindly-running-to-save-their-lives side quest last night.  At least they’re still heading west.  Red’s in better condition than Keith had hoped, though he knows in hindsight he shouldn’t have doubted his mare.  She’s tough as nails and hasn’t even come close to letting him down.  He does harbor a bit of worry for Fala, though.  The horse is over 20 years old, and who knows how hard he was running before Princess Allura even reached Keith.

“How’s your horse?” Keith turns around in the saddle to face the princess.  She looks surprised, like Keith caught her daydreaming.

“He’s fine,” she says guardedly.  Keith runs a critical eye over the old stallion and he actually does look fine.  Tired, but fine.  Keith nods.  “I should ask, how are you?”

“I’m fine,” Keith responds, fully ignoring the dull, constant ache in his shoulders and the continued stinging itches of all his cuts.  “You?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I kinda pulled you off the back of your horse last night,” Keith says sheepishly.  “Sorry about that.”

“I landed on my feet.  It's quite alright.”  The princess doesn’t seem that upset about it.

“So… you’re not mad about it?”

Princess Allura shakes her head.

“…Even though you’re a princess?”

The princess gives him a strange, squinty look and Keith prepares for a lecture of some sort on whatever passes for feminism on Altea, but she just bursts out laughing.  “Do you really think that if I wanted to be handled like a glass figurine I’d be riding in this race?”

Keith sucks on his teeth.  She has a point.  A good point.

The princess continues, “I come from a long line of woman warriors, and in the absence of war, thank the Ancients, I will ride here to show Altea’s strength and prowess.”  In that moment, Fala raises his head like he’s hearing some far-off noise and the wind picks up.  They look truly regal together, proud contenders for the prize and the honor.  “And what of you?  What do you ride for?”  Princess Allura turns her bright, piercing blue gaze on Keith.  Keith’s eyes flicker up to the camera in her helmet right as the lens catches the early afternoon light, seeming to wink at him.  She catches the quick glance as Keith hesitates and puts two and two together quickly.

“I…” Keith trails off, looking over his shoulder at Red.

“If you’re worried about the camera, don’t be.  It’s really of no consequence.  The officiants can’t use anything you say or do against you.  How do you think Lotor’s getting away with killing that poor rider?”  Princess Allura unbuckles her helmet as she speaks, setting it on Fala’s rump behind her to shake out her long, thick white hair.

“He’s not going to get in trouble for it?” Keith blurts, outraged.

“There is no rule against injuring other riders, even if the injuries are mortal,” the princess responds grimly.  “There are diplomatic repercussions, of course, but we all know the Galra are cruel and bloodthirsty, so it hardly taints their image.  Since Lotor and his victim are both in the OTR category, there’s no official interplanetary actions to be taken, either.  It’s common knowledge OTR riders are most vulnerable to violence without the backing of a civilization behind them.”

Keith’s blood chills.  “So we are all untouchable out here, regardless of what we do?”

Princess Allura nods.  “So long as our horses are in good health when we check in, the officiants cannot lay a finger on us to stop us from riding.”

“That’s fucked.”  Keith rubs a hand over his face.  He takes a deep breath.  “Well, if there aren’t any consequences, to hell with it,” he says aggressively.  “I’m riding because I need the money.  I’m flat broke and homeless and I have been all my life.  I live off the back of my horse, I ride from town to town looking for work as a cowboy for the day, barely make enough money to feed myself, and I dropped out of high school.”

The princess is silent, whether surprised or waiting for Keith to continue, he can’t tell.  At least she has the decency to not look disgusted.

“I don’t even know what breed Red is.  I bought her for $50 at an auction when I was sixteen and if I hadn’t bought her, she’d’a been shipped to Mexico and slaughtered for meat.  This is the same saddle I’ve had since the day I got her.  An old vaquero gave it to me cheap.  I stole the bridle from a fancy tack store the day I decided I was going to start endurance racing.  It took all the money I had to get to the starting line of my first race, then all that purse money to get to Mars, then all that purse money to get here.  If I don’t win this race, I have no money to get home.  I literally can’t afford to lose.

“So I’m sorry I’m just a homeless cowboy that’s weaseled his way into your rich, fancy intergalactic race.  But I’m not sorry that I’m gonna win.”

The sounds of the forest and their horses are deafening when Keith stops speaking, prepared for the princess’s anger, disgust, shock, or outrage.  He’s not prepared for the huge, genuine smile she gives him.

“Don’t be sorry.  Money is as good a reason as any—better than many others’ reasons for being here.  Too many of us are already rich, or come from rich worlds where the Voltron purse is just a drop in the bucket.  For you, this is real; it has a true purpose.  Your determination is very noble, Keith.”

It takes a moment for Keith to process Princess Allura’s words, but when it hits him, he goes a bit dizzy with relief, planting his hand on Red’s rump to steady himself in the saddle.  He looks at her in near disbelief.  “Really?”

She nods, still smiling at him.

“I just told you…  And you…” he trails off.  Allura waits patiently for him to gather his thoughts.  “But what about you?  Aren’t you trying to win this race too?”

“Oh, undoubtedly,” she responds confidently.  “But I don’t need to concede the race to you to admire your determination or critique the grotesque wealth of so much of this affair.  And I don’t need to openly antagonize or fight you to try to win either.  We’re only on the second day, and I’m sure we will take our separate paths at some point.  For now, I’m enjoying your company and very much hoping we will still be friends after all’s said and done.”

_Friends._ There it is again.  The very thing that Lotor had cautioned Keith against, what Keith had sworn he wouldn’t give in to.  But now he’s apparently got three of them.  Two of which had given him valuable information on how the race works, and one of which has now saved his life _and_ accepted his grubby history.  Maybe he’d been wrong when he’d made that promise to himself.  Keith’s deep-seated distrust of charity rears its head, but he still thinks that maybe, just for this part of the race, he could make an exception.

“Yeah,” Keith says eventually, nodding as he meets Allura’s eyes.  A small smile graces his lips, which Allura echoes.

 

* * *

 

 

After that, Keith finds out that while Allura is wordy when she does talk, she’s not much of a conversationalist.  That suits Keith just fine, and they finish out the day’s ride mostly in comfortable silence and an easy pace.  When he checks his communicator, Keith’s pleased to see they still managed to cover about thirty miles in spite of everything.  They’re still relatively on-course, too, and that puts a satisfied smile on his face.

His legs ring with pins and needles when he dismounts, and by the way Allura winces as she gets off, it’s much the same for her.  They lead their horses off the game trail a little ways, trying to disturb as little as possible in case Lotor is somehow still tracking them.  In the end, they set up camp in a small clearing where the horses can forage comfortably.  As Keith is hobbling Red, Allura leans over his shoulder curiously.

“What are you doing?” she asks.  Keith finishes buckling the straps, then leans back and looks up at the princess.

“Hobbling her.  That way she can still graze and move around a bit, and in theory she can’t go far.”  He looks sidelong at Red, who is already waddling away from them with quick, careful steps.  “But this one’s better at walking in them than she should be.  She’s too smart for her own good.”  Keith raises his voice at the last part and Red flicks an ear at him, listening but not caring.

“She would walk away from you otherwise?” Allura sounds vaguely surprised, even though she’s watching Red actively walk away from Keith.

“Yeah,” he replies, nonplussed, and dusts his hands off as he stands.  “She was probably born wild and as much as I love her, that’s part of her.  She doesn’t owe me anything, really, and can more’n enough take care of herself.  I take it yours doesn’t?”

The two riders look over their shoulders at Fala, who is standing obediently not more than five feet behind Allura.  He pricks his ears politely as their eyes fall on him, and comes over to nuzzle Allura.  She smiles softly at the old stallion, hugging his whiskery nose to her chest.  It’s a sweet sight, to be sure.  Keith looks back over at Red and calls, “you see this?  Why can’t you be more like this?”

The mare just swishes her tail as she edges further into the underbrush, only to be stopped by her hobbles catching on some vines.  Keith sighs and goes to extract her.  Red nips at Keith’s fingers for his troubles and he still gives her a fond pat on the neck. 

“Did you train her yourself?” Allura asks, now unbraiding Fala’s mane.  Keith nods.

“She was unbroken when I bought her and she would’ve made a decent rodeo bronc in the beginning.  I’m glad I kept at her, though, because I wouldn’t trade her for the world.”

Allura smiles, keeping her eyes on her task.  “If you read my profile, I’m sure you know Fala was my father’s old Voltron champion.  He and my father have a way of speaking without anyone else seeing or hearing.  It’s truly a wonder to watch them work together, and really no surprise they won Voltron together.  I’m sure some of Fala’s affection for me comes from my relation to Father, but Altean Pacers are a loving breed by nature.”

“Do you braid his mane every night?”  Keith settles down, leaning back against his saddle as he fishes out another energy bar and just watches Allura’s clever fingers at work.

“Almost every night.  It is against the law to cut a purebred Pacer’s hair, so braiding it is the natural solution to keeping it manageable, especially in terrain like this.”  Keith then realizes what Allura’s talking about as she frees another tight braid and the stallion’s purple-grey mane cascades in waves down past his throat.  He can only imagine what more than twenty years of tail growth looks like.  When Allura finishes the mane and moves on to undoing the elaborate tail braid, Keith’s curiosity is satisfied.  Fala’s tail is so long a good foot of it trails across the ground, the hair fading from that odd lavender grey to white at the ends.  Allura then sets to combing the hair with her fingers.

The light has almost gone by the time the princess finishes with her horse’s hair and leans back against a tree to eat one of her own energy bars with a tired sigh.  “How are your supplies?” she asks eventually.  Keith pats his saddlebags, assessing the levels of grain.

“Decent.”  Allura nods, peering in her own.

“We can ride easily again tomorrow to keep recovering.  Tomorrow will be the third day, and our first window to stop at a checkpoint.  If you’re amenable, we can put that off until the fourth day and ride harder that day if our horses are doing well.”

“Sounds good to me.”  Keith is grateful for Allura’s expertise in strategy.  Not that he couldn’t have figured that out on his own, but it’s reassuring to have someone who’s done this before.  Then, before Keith decides to sleep, he whistles for Red.  It’s a particular sound he uses when he just wants the mare to sound off, long and low like the wind whistling through gullies.  It’s a sound that carries.  Not too far away, Red whinnies softly.  Satisfied, Keith puts his head down on his saddle, tugs his race colors over him as a blanket, and closes his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos are always appreciated, and comments will be adopted and loved as my own children. What do you think of Lotor now that he's shown his true colors? And is Allura not the most badass sweetheart you've ever seen?


End file.
